Thanks for the wealth of information and references.  That was an 
outstanding web site with a chronolgy of sinkings on the east coast.


I counted about 25 tankers sunk in 1942, most in the first six months.  At 
4.7 million gallons of oil per ship, thats about 117 million gallons which 
went somewhere.  Its a long coast, and as you noted some tankers are said to 
still have oil in their tanks (althought the amount is questionable, since 
oil is lighter than water, which accounts for the fact that it was really 
difficult to sink a tanker unless the torpedo blew a hole in the tanks 
themselves.)

Randy Cabell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "macbd1" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Oil spills on Virginia Shore during WWII


> Randy,
>
> The workhorse oil tankers of World War II, the T-2 and T-3, had a 
> deadweight of 16,000 and 18,000 tons respectively.  At 6.6 bbl./ton (from 
> an API source) x 42 gal./bbl. x 17000 tons = 4.7 million gal. per tanker 
> approximate average.  (That's 7.2 lb./gal which seems about right for 
> little-refined oil.)  As to how many tankers were sunk in the proximity of 
> Virginia Beach during the first six months of 1942 your guess is probably 
> better than mine, but to equal the Exxon Valdez disaster of 11 million 
> gal. = 2.3 tankers.  (The Exxon Valdez 'only' lost roughly 20% of its 
> total cargo.)
>
> Whoops, just found this one from a Google:
>
> http://www.usmm.org/eastgulf.html#anchor473040
>
> http://www.usmm.org/shipsunkdamaged.html
>
> Now, determine or make an assumption as to how many of these east-coast 
> tanker sinkings occurred in the proximity of Virginia Beach and you have a 
> rough comparison with the Exxon Valdez loss.  Maybe another assumption 
> should be made as to whether all tankers lost their complete load of oil 
> when sunk, and how much washed ashore, as I read that hundreds of sunken 
> tankers from WWII still lay on the ocean floors, *with tanks still intact* 
> and subject to leakeage during movement from storms -- a major 65 to 70 
> year-old cleanup problem:
>
> http://ww2chat.com/showthread.php?1209-Oil-tankers-sunk-Pacific-ww2
>
> And maybe the tanker tonnage rating first above is for long or metric 
> tons, I didn't check.  I also read later that the T-2 was the major tanker 
> used by far during WWII at 16,400 tons net rating (when full.)
>
> As to how and when the Virginia beaches were cleaned, following is a list 
> of possible book sources that I didn't read:  (Local newspapers are likely 
> better sources.)
>
> http://books.google.com/books?q=tanker+oil+spills+during+%22world+War+II%22+Virginia+Beach&btnG=Search+Books
>
> Hope this helps a little, and let's hope that a 'fix' is soon found for 
> the Gulf's 'continuing' oilwell-discharge problem of yet unknown 
> proportion.
>
> Neil McDonald
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "John Smith at dhova" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 8:27 AM
> Subject: [VA-HIST] Oil spills on Virginia Shore during WWII
>
>
> I certainly do not want to minimize the disaster in the gulf, with all the 
> oil washing ashore.  But I would like to get a better understanding of 
> just how much it is.  e.g. the other night, I understood the announcer to 
> say it was much less than the Exon Valdez.
>
> But more to the Virginia point,  I recall as a little tyke living at 
> Virginia Beach during WWII, and having a tremendous amount of oil wash 
> ashore from tankers sunk offshore by German U-Boats.  It was thick and 
> coated everything.  Seagulls and other marine birds really took a hit.  Is 
> there any tabulation of how much oil was in tankers sunk just off the VA 
> and NC shore between Jan and June 1942?  How much reached shores? And how 
> it was cleaned up?
>
> Randy Cabell
>
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