The James Eagan Layne (Wreck)

 scuba diving facility / area, interesting place, invisible

The USA built 2700 liberty ships for World War Two. In most diving logbooks there is only one - the James Eagan Layne - the most dived ship in British waters.

She was one of 120 Liberty ships named after men of the American Merchant Marine killed by enemy action during the war. James Eagan Layne earned his Liberty ship when, as Second Engineer Layne, he was killed in the engine-room of the Esso Baton Rouge tanker, torpedoed off the east coast of the USA in 1942.

The keel of the Layne was laid down in October 1944, one of the 188 Liberty ships to be built by the Delta Shipbuilding Company of New Orleans.

Just 40 days later, on 2 December, widow Marjorie Layne cried out: "I name this ship James Eagan Layne, and may God bless all who sail in her!" as she swung the champagne bottle to shatter on her bow. Liberty Ship 157, bearing her late husband's name, slid sideways into the Mississippi.

James Eagan Layne had needed 43 miles of welding to put her together. She was 7176 tons gross, 441ft long with a beam of 57ft and had two oil-fired boilers. Her standard triple-expansion engines had been built at the Joshua Hendy Ironworks of Sunnyvale, CA. Fitting her out after her launch took another 16 days.
At the beginning of March, 1945 her maiden voyage began. She steamed across the Atlantic, holds crammed with war supplies, lorries, jeeps, railway rolling stock and tank parts, to Barry Roads, where she was joined to Convoy BTC 103 for the rest of her voyage to Ghent. But, like 50 other Liberty ships, her maiden voyage was to be her last.

Kapitänleutnant Ernst Cordes in U1195 found the James Eagan Layne in a break in the fog on 21 March, as she was passing close to South Devon"s West Rutts. She was the lead ship in the second column of the convoy and, shortly before 4pm, Cordes sent a single torpedo into her. It struck just aft of her engine-room and she lost all power immediately, swishing to a halt on the calm sea. She was badly holed in two of her rear holds and water was rising fast.

She sat there, with nobody making any noise for fear of attracting a second torpedo, until two Admiralty tugs arrived and took off her crew of 42 and the 27 gunners who manned her six AA gun emplacements. Then they took her in tow.

They aimed to beach her but the inrush of water was too great and the tugs had to cast off as she sank to the sandy bottom a mile from Rame Head at 10.30pm. Some salvage started at once. Her guns were taken out and any easy-to-reach army equipment was lifted out of her holds.

The next, only minor salvage, was by an Icelandic firm in 1953. In 1967, a British firm salved the prop, condenser and propshaft. More recently, 60 brass shellcases were salved from under a 5.5in gun which had been mounted on the stern.

Amateur divers first visited the James Eagan Layne in 1954, when it was possible to tie up to one of the masts which still showed. They haven't stopped diving this particular wreck since.