Site of USS Lafayette (AP-53) / SS Normandie Fire

 Second World War 1939-1945, place with historical importance, shipwreck, historical layer / disappeared object, United States Navy

Laid down at Chantiers de l'Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France in 1931 and entering service for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in 1935, the SS Normandie was the largest and fastest passenger ship of her day. Considered by many to be the zenith of French Ocean Liner design the Normandie's innovative hull form, luxurious Art Deco interiors and powerful steam turbo-electric propulsion system gave her a top speed of over 32 knots and made her very popular during her peacetime service years.

The Normandie's service life was cut short at only 4 years by the outbreak of World War Two in Europe as the danger posed by German U-Boats combined with lack of passengers severely affected the ships operations. After her arrival in New York City in early 1940 at the completion of her 139th crossing of the Atlantic the Normandie was ordered to remain docked at Pier 88 by her owners as the situation in France worsened. After France fell to Nazi Germany in June 1940, the Normandie was seized by the US Government and impounded at Pier 88. Joined at the piers for several weeks in 1940 by her once-competitors the RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth and the RMS Mauretania while the British vessels were converted into troopships, the Normandie was considered for conversion into an Aircraft Carrier for the Royal Navy for a time. However, following the US entrance into World War Two in December 1942 these plans were scrapped in favor of converting her into a Troopship.

Formally acquired by the US Navy on December 27th, 1941, the former Normandie was renamed the USS Lafayette and given the hull designation AP-53 for her new role as a troop transport. Workers descended on the ship and began the laborious effort of converting the luxury liner into a warship, a task which included among other things the removal of all flammable furnishings, furniture and paint from the ships rooms and walls and the installation of damage control features and gun mounts and repainting her hull from peacetime white over black to wartime gray. Work continued through the frigid months of January and February around the clock until the afternoon of February 9th, 1942 when a spark from a welder's torch started a fire in a pile of highly flammable kapok-filled life vests and bales of mattresses stored in the former First Class Dining Room.

Onboard firefighting efforts were unable to contain the rapidly growing flames as the pile of lifejackets provided more than enough fuel for the fire to begin spreading through holes cut in the ship's decks. Though the Normandie was constructed with a state-of-the-art fire protection system, the piping and pumps had been disconnected by workers during the conversion further hampering onboard firefighting efforts. Within minutes, the flames had spread out of the First Class Dining Room and had found piles of oil-paint and lacquer covered wood which had been removed from the ships walls to fuel itself. Calls went out to the New York City Fire Department for assistance, and within half an hour several fire trucks had arrived but found the ships standpipes and fire nozzle fittings to be unusable, as they were made to French metric standards. As the flames spread unchecked through the interior of the ship, work crews were ordered off as Fireboats arrived to battle the blaze from the Hudson River. Forced to take exterior positions, the FDNY shoreside units did what they could to surround and drown the flames onboard as Fireboats did the same from the river. Despite the best efforts of all the firefighters present, within two hours the Lafayette was a blazing inferno from Stem to Stern.

As night fell the fires continued and the ship began taking a noticeable list to Port from the massive amounts of water being pumped onboard by Fireboats. Despite the pleas of her designer that she be re-boarded and scuttled onto the shallow river bottom, the flooding continued in an effort to quench the fire and leave the ship afloat. By 02:30hrs the following morning the Lafayette's list had passed 20 degrees to Port and her mooring lines began parting from the strain of the flooded, burning ship. Crews which had-reboarded the ship were hastily being removed when she suddenly capsized to Port, nearly crushing the Fireboat Fire Fighter which was alongside.

The fires were quickly extinguished following the capsize, but the enormous ship had dug herself firmly into the bottom of the Hudson River and soon became encased in thick river ice. Salvage efforts by Merrit, Chapman & Scott and the Brookyln Navy Yard began immediately, but the size of the ship, her location and the damage to her superstructure made the job immensely difficult. Her hull was finally righted in October 1943 only after the removal of her entire superstructure above the hull line. Refloated in November 1943 after what was then the world's most expensive salvage operation, the Lafayette was deemed too heavily damaged to be worth repairing and was laid up at the Brooklyn Navy Yard until the end of the war.

Her hulk remained in Navy custody until October 1945 when she was stricken from the Naval Register and offered for sale. Several parties expressed interest in repairing the once-famed liner for the passenger trade, but by 1946 no firm offers were tendered and the hull was sold for scrapping at Lipsett Incorporated in Kearny, NJ and broken up in December 1946.

www.navsource.org/archives/09/22/22053.htm


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