4A • April 10, 2015 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
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ELAINE TRUCKE
The rediscovered history of the SS Cannon Beach
In my last article, I
reached out for informa-
tion on the Oregon Coast
during WWII and a local
man, Ed Johnson, con-
tacted me with a ques-
tion. He wondered if I
had ever heard of a ship
called the “USS Cannon
Beach.” I hadn’t. It is a
rare thing for me to be
stumped when it comes to
our town history, but here
I was, and I wasn’t the
first. Never one to pass
up a good historic tidbit,
my colleague and I delved
into the archives and even
touched base with Sa-
lem. I guess we weren’t
the only ones who hadn’t
heard of the ship named
for our beloved town.
Even several decades
ago, not many in Cannon
Beach had heard of the
ship that was named for
the town. Former crew
member, Fred Walburn,
was so surprised he shot
an email to the Historical
Society.
“Several years ago I
was in Cannon Beach for
a few days and was sur-
prised to learn that no
one seemed to know that
a ship had been named
for your fair city,” said
Walburn. He was a crew
member on the SS Can-
non Beach for a short pe-
riod after its construction
in 1945. They sailed from
the port of Los Angeles
(San Pedro) on October
8, 1945 with a cargo of
aviation fuel. They were
bound for the port at Yo-
kohama, Japan. However,
just outside of the Aleu-
tian Islands the ship was
caught in a severe storm,
which caused significant
damage to the bulkheads.
The Cannon Beach was
ordered back to San Pedro
for repairs and that was
the last time that Walburn
saw her.
The SS Cannon Beach
was christened on Au-
gust 25, 1945 at Swan
Island Yard. While my
knowledge of nautical
terminology is rather lim-
ited, I was told that USS
ELAINE TRUCKE
stands for United States
Ship (or something along
those lines), while SS can
mean “steamed ship” or
“screwed steamer” (re-
ferring to a ship driven
by propellers or screws).
Don’t quote me on those
prefixes! What is clear is
that the ship was chris-
tened the SS Cannon
Beach.
The Cannon Beach
was constructed by the
Kaiser Company for the
United States Maritime
Commission. According
to documents in the mu-
seum’s archive, the ship
was one of several emer-
gency tankers planned in
1941. These ships were of
a commercial design that
the Sun Ship Building
Company had been build-
ing for the Standard Oil
Company of New Jersey.
A total of 525 of these
ships were contracted be-
tween 1942 and 1948.
Many of these ships
were of the classification
SE-A1 and were equipped
with turbo electric ma-
chinery producing a shaft
horsepower of 6,000. The
ships had a top speed
of between 14.5 and 15
knots. Construction of
these ships was shared
between the “Alabama
Dry-dock & Shipbuilding
Company, of Mobile, Al-
abama, the Kaiser Com-
pany’s Swan Island Yard
at Portland, Oregon, the
Marine Ship Corporation
at Sausalito, California
and the Sun Shipbuilding
& Dry-dock Company of
Chester, Pennsylvania.”
In a letter addressed to
former Oregon State Sen-
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dated April 4, 1985, the
U.S. Department of Trans-
portation’s Maritime Ad-
ministration department,
states that the SS Cannon
Beach was operated by
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General Agency Agree-
ment with the War Ship-
ping Administration. From
September 1945 to Sep-
tember 1947, the ship pri-
marily carried petroleum
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October 1947, the SS Can-
non Beach was sold to the
Lanmore Company and
registered under the Pan-
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to transport petroleum un-
til it was sold in Decem-
ber of 1960 to the Panama
Trans-Oceanic Company,
S.A. She was then placed
in the shipyard of Ham-
burg, Germany, where she
was lengthened to 575 feet
and renamed the Carolyn
E. Conway.
The former SS Can-
non Beach continued to
operate for another fif-
teen years before the ship
was sold for scrap. Sadly,
breaking up of the vessel
was completed in Taiwan
in 1976.
Though the SS Cannon
Beach had a sad ending
and a rather uneventful
history, there is no doubt
that she brought a little
international prestige to
our small town and adds
an interesting twist in
Cannon Beach’s unique Christened the SS Cannon Beach on August 25, 1945, the WWII era “emergency tanker”
had a rather “uneventful history.”
history.
Officials gather for a photograph to commemorate the
christening of the SS Cannon Beach in August 1945.
The SS Cannon Beach hard at work. Images could be from
Swan Island Yard.
STEVEN SINKLER
A wine competition, a haunted room and a surprise ending
Demanding work, this
wine judging thing. Three
days of delicious food,
world class wine and sleep-
ing in a beautiful, historic
hotel. Funny how the invite
forgot to mention the hotel
was haunted.
Having been invited
to be a wine judge for the
2015 Great Northwest Wine
Competition,
Maryann
and I happily headed off to
Hood River. After spend-
ing the past three years as
a wine panel moderator for
the Savor Northwest Wine
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competition as a full-blown
judge.
The competition was
held at the Columbia Gorge
Hotel, which was built in
1920. This beautifully re-
stored inn has hosted many
famous entertainers, includ-
ing Rudolf Valentino. Peri-
od music plays throughout
the hotel, taking you back
in time to the hotel’s grand-
est days.
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welcome dinner, we learned
that over 1,200 wines had
been submitted for judg-
ing, making this the largest
wine competition ever held
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Wines were submitted from
as far away as British Co-
lumbia and Idaho, although
the vast majority came
from Oregon and Wash-
ington. We also learned
our judging team assign-
ments and I was pleased to
be teamed up with Stephen
Reustle, the wine maker at
Reustle Prayer-Rock Vine-
yards, located in Roseburg,
and Ilene Dudunake, own-
er of A New Vintage Wine
Shop from Boise. I enjoyed
working with Stephen at
Savor Northwest in 2014
and I was certain that we’d
make a great team again.
After dinner, Maryann
and I returned to our room,
Room 333, and called it a
night. We were both tired as
we had left Cannon Beach
early in the morning and
took the scenic route to
Hood River, which included
a stop at Multnomah Falls,
Cathedral Ridge Winery
and shopping in downtown
Hood River, prior to check-
ing into our hotel.
I woke up at about 2:30
a.m. and was lying awake
in bed when suddenly
the closet light turned on.
Whoa! The closet door was
closed, but I could see the
closet light coming from
between the door and the
frame. I also knew that the
closet light was activat-
ed by a motion detector.
Something had moved in
the closet. Then, suddenly
the light went off. Ahhh…
back to normal. Then, the
light came back on, again!
What? I looked for any sign
of movement in the closet. I
STEVEN SINKLER
can assure you that if I had
seen a shadow or detected
any movement, I would’ve
been out of that room im-
mediately. And, then again,
the light went out. Ahhh…
relief. Then, the light came
on a third time! Are you
kidding me? I kept per-
fectly still while watching
for movement. Then, the
light went out. Thank you.
I didn’t wake up Maryann
during this episode as I’m
not sure how she would’ve
reacted, but I’m pretty sure
she wouldn’t have hung
around for all three of the
closet lightings. I fell back
to sleep with no further
ghostly encounters. In the
morning, I told Maryann
what had happened and she
was glad that I didn’t wake
her up.
I went downstairs for
breakfast and I asked some
of the hotel staff whether
the hotel was haunted. Each
gave the same reply, “The
SUBMITTED PHOTO
The historic Columbia Gorge Hotel in Hood River is a great place to visit, but be wary of
Room 333, columnist Steve Sinkler advises.
hotel is absolutely haunted
and Room 333 is the most
active.” Great. Later, during
a break in the wine competi-
tion, I was talking to another
judge about my closet light
experience the night before
and a nearby hotel employ-
ee asked if I was talking
about Room 333. When I
told him that, indeed, I was,
he responded that he wasn’t
surprised at all.
We didn’t have any fur-
ther eerie visits, but we did
have an unexpected occur-
rence. A Washington pinot
noir rosé took the Best of
Show Award. You read that
correctly. A rosé made from
Washington pinot noir was
selected as the very best
wine in the entire compe-
tition. So much for Wash-
ington and their big, bold
cabernet sauvignon or the
delicate and delicious pinot
noir from Oregon. Both of
these iconic wines were tak-
en down by Victor Palen-
cia’s 2014 Vino La Monar-
cha Pinot Noir Rosé, a dry
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vors of strawberry, apricot
and tangerine. This wine is
made in very small quan-
tities so I don’t expect that
you’ll be seeing this on the
Wine Shack’s shelves. But,
I was fortunate to taste this
amazing wine and respect it
for the shock it gave to both
Washington and Oregon
wineries.
Please drink responsibly.
Don’t drink and drive.
Steven and Maryann
Sinkler own The Wine
Shack in Cannon Beach.
His column appears every
month.
already paved, so how does
having 25 percent of them
gravel create or maintain a
“village atmosphere?”
We would encourage the
city to simply pave streets,
particularly steep ones, us-
ing our tax dollars rather
than going through some
byzantine process of get-
ting home owners to “vote”
if they want to spend 80
percent of some unknown
cost to pave their street, a
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cent of the other residents
at no direct cost to them-
selves.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Why not pave the
streets?
To the editor,
We are Cannon Beach
residents whose street is
graveled and quite steep.
We have had to call the
city frequently to request
grading and addition of
more gravel due to extreme
troughs. Regarding the re-
cent articles about paving
the gravel streets in Cannon
Beach, we would like to of-
fer the following:
Gravel: The advantage,
as stated by the mayor, is
that it “maintains the ‘vil-
lage atmosphere’ of the
town,” an obviously sub-
jective opinion.
The
disadvantages:
More costly to maintain
(lots of online information),
noise and dust pollution, in-
accessible for wheelchairs.
Pavement: Advantages
are lower maintenance cost,
quieter (goes along with the
“village” effect), creates
less dust pollution, safer
(have you ever tried to stop
or turn quickly on gravel?),
better handicapped accessi-
bility.
The disadvantages: We
see no inherent disadvan-
tage to paving. Seven-
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