Neil, Looks like many on the list were small tankers after
cross-referencing the Uboat.net website and the tanker names in the
usmm.org spreadsheet.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/listing.php

They run roughly 5,000-10,000 tons.  Nothing like the tankers of today
that weigh in at 100,000-200,000 tons each.

But it is fascinating to know that Virginia had its own oil spill of
sorts.

Eric


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of macbd1
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
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 
 
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