World War IIDS Ingerfem
SS Ingerfem was on a journey in convoy from Loch Ewe in 1942, on Christmas Eve, to Halifax in ballast. The ship followed the convoy for three days, but then had problems with their machinery and disbanded from the convoy. On the 29th of December 1942, the ship was torpedoed by the German U-boat U-631. After five minutes, the ship broke in two and brought down 30 men in a lifeboat along into the depth. Eight men sat in another lifeboat and were drifting in the directions the winds and waves brought them. The lifeboat was constantly filled with water and the men aboard tried to empty the boat of water. On the 1st of January 1943, the boat capsized. The eight men boarded the boat again, but their will of life were broken in all but one. They stood in the middle of the lifeboat and that was how tree of the crew-members died on the very same day. They drifted for seven days in a boat that was almost constantly filled with water. It capsized again, but they managed to sail again. During the night, four of them died. The gunner, Ole Johan Næss (20-years-old) from Larvik, was the lone survivor. Insanity caught him; he jumped overboard, but was immediately washed up by a wave onto the boat again. In an attempt to take his own life, he drank large amounts of seawater, but even this did not succeed. On the 11th of January 1943, after 14 stormy days, the lifeboat was observed 500 nautical miles west of Scotland by the American fruitship Steemac. Næss was unconscious when he was saved. The ship doctor gave him the best treatment they could offer until he was brought to a hospital in the Ards District in Belfast. The skilled doctors helped him recover. 36 men perished in the sinking.
About DS Ingerfem
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Nationality
Norway
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Built
1912
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Wrecked
29.12.1942
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Carrier
Jacob Kjøde, Bergen
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Tonnage
7000 dvt
