306 Men, No Distress Call: The Vanishing of USS Cyclops
On March 4, 1918, the collier USS Cyclops steamed out of Bridgetown, Barbados, bound for Baltimore with 306 men aboard and roughly 10,800 tons of manganese ore in her holds. At 542 feet, she was one of the largest ships in the United States Navy, built to feed coal to the fleet. Somewhere between the Caribbean and the Chesapeake, she simply ceased to exist. No distress call was ever received. No confirmed wreckage has ever been found.
The voyage had been troubled from the start. Cyclops left Rio de Janeiro in mid-February carrying the dense ore, urgently needed for wartime munitions production. Her stop in Barbados was unscheduled — she was riding low in the water, a sign of possible overloading — and she was nursing a damaged engine. Her captain, George W. Worley, a German-born officer with a reputation for eccentric and harsh behavior, pressed on north regardless.
Sign up and get your first month completely free — unlimited access to the entire archive, ad-free for subscribers. Cancel anytime.
Subscribe — first month free