SS President Harrison: Master's Report to American President Lines

FROM: Master Orel A. Pierson

SUBJECT: Loss of Harrison, December 8, 1941

Some time late in November 1941 we arrived at Manila, Philippine Islands, from the Pacific Coast via Honolulu, Suva and the Torres Straits. Here we were informed that we would proceed to Hong Kong to outfit as a transport and proceed to Shanghai together with the SS President Madison to evacuate the U.S. Fourth Marines.

On December 3rd we made a rendezvous off Formosa with four U.S. submarines and with their machine guns mounted ready for instant action, we proceeded to Olongapoo [Philippine Islands]. At this time, it was apparent to all that war was imminent. We noted, and reported, that Japanese Naval units and transports were steaming south in large numbers.

SS President Harrison Orel A. Pierson

Left Manila on the morning of December 4, 1941, with a crew of 154 and one representative of the passenger department of American President Lines. On arrival at Chingwangtao we were to pick up around 300 Marines of the Peking and Tientsin Legation Guard and some 1400 tons of equipment and return to Manila.

The vessel was chartered by the U.S. Navy on a day to day basis for this purpose. We were under direct orders of Admiral Hart and were “on the drum” of the Cavite Naval Radio. In other words we were in constant contact, on a specified frequency and a secret call letter. The only actual orders I ever received were verbal “to proceed to Chingwangtao and bring out the Marines.”

Consider now the situation in the Far East. Tension was mounting, war or the possibility of it was on every man’s tongue The destination of the Harrison (though it was supposed to be a deep dark secret) was the talk of every hotel and bar room in Manila. The Japanese most certainly knew where we were going and for what reason. In fact, I was later informed by the Captain of a Japanese destroyer that “they knew all about our movements.”

All American ships bound for Chinese ports had been ordered to Manila and to my certain knowledge all British ships in North China waters as early as December 2nd had been ordered to proceed at full speed to Singapore. Proceeding north from Manila we again noted heavy Japanese shipping moving to the south.

SS President Harrison left Manila for Chingwangtao, but was captured near Shanghai Saddle and Shaweishan islands in vicinity of Shanghai

About 2:30 AM on the morning of December 7th we passed the North Saddles and set course for Shaweishan on the north side of the Yangstze estuary. Somewhere about 3:30 AM I received a message from Cavite that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The show was on.

We were in hostile waters, surrounded on all sides by Japanese-held territory or Japan proper. The vessel was completely outfitted for the carriage of troops and if she fell into Japanese hands, could have been loaded and used for that purpose within a matter of hours against our forces in the Far East. I was bound and determined to use every means in my power to prevent this.

What to do? I have given some thought to the matter after leaving Manila. The first and obvious thing of course was to try and escape with the ship. Even though this might prove to be a hopeless move, we turned off immediately to the south/west hoping by some miracle we might work our way out through the islands south of Van Dieman Strait, make for the extreme north Pacific and eventually back to some Pacific Coast port. After informing the officers and crew as to what had happened we started to paint out the stack and superstructure hoping to get on as much grey paint as possible before we met up with any Japanese craft.

Being able to make about fifteen and one half knots we had not made many miles when daylight came and with it a Japanese plane with her bomb racks full. She signaled us to stop with a burst of machinegun fire and then after circling us flew off towards another ship that was coming up on the horizon.

This ship turned out to be the Nagasaki Maru a fast 22 knot mail boat on the Japan-China run. Apparently, he had been told to tail us and keep us under surveillance while he reported our whereabouts to the naval authorities in Shanghai. I knew this ship well and realized the futility of trying to escape from her. We were in no way afraid of her and as soon as we recognized her we got under way, but try as we would, could not lose her. As often as we changed course she did the same and stayed on our heels. I thought at one time of ramming her but she was smart enough to keep well clear of us while still keeping guard over us.

My plan was to run for the beach and send the ship up as high as possible at full speed hoping to accomplish this before any further ships made their appearance.

We started in the direction of Shaweishan as this was the nearest land and as we approached it I conceived the idea of sending the ship over the edge of it and ripping her bottom out completely. If we could achieve this, the vessel would go down completely and most surely be a total loss.

As we approached the island we sighted a Japanese destroyer making toward us under forced draft and the plane again returned over head. He did not open fire or drop his bombs - the reason I learned later, they wanted the ship intact.

It became a race as to whether we could make the island before the destroyer could intercept us. Five minutes before we struck we ordered the engineers out of the engine room leaving the plant wide open.

Shortly after 1:00 PM and making around sixteen knots, we struck the edge of the island in the vicinity of Number One Hatch on the port side. Being thoroughly familiar with the construction of these ships and their sturdiness I knew it would be useless to take the ship in head on. She would only have banged up her bow and most likely backed off and still floated. Several accidents in the past have proved this on vessels of this type.

The island is rounded and steep on the side we approached it from. She rode along the edge of the island for a considerable distance then heeled away over to starboard and rolled off. It turned out later we had ripped a hole in her 90 feet long but unfortunately she rolled off before reaching the engine room spaces.

We had kept our radio silent until close in then I gave the operator orders to open up and get a message away as to what we were doing. This message was received and acknowledged by a San Francisco shore station.

By now the plane had opened up with his machine gun and was strafing the ship presumably to stop us from using the radio. The plane made no attempt to strafe the boats in the water making for the island. The destroyer, running into shoal water, was feeling her way in to anchor.

I landed on the island with my boat crew thinking that all was well and all safely ashore. There I found that one boat had gone under the quarter and that the port propeller was still slowly turning over, due to steam within the engine itself not being fully exhausted, and that the boat had been capsized the crew thrown into the water and three of the men lost.