The Empire Mica Wreck

The Empire Mica Wreck

Panama City Beach, Florida

History of the Empire Mica

The British standard type Ocean tanker Empire Mica was built in 1941 for the Ministry of War Transport at Haverton Hill, Teeside, by Furness S.B. Co. of Haverton Hill on Tees.  She was 479 feet long, had a 61 foot beam, displaced 8,032 gross tons and was powered by 674 nhp triple expansion engines.  She was managed by Anglo-American Oil Co. Ltd. of London.

On June 29, 1942, while en route from Houston and New Orleans to the United Kingdom with a cargo of 12,000 tons of clean oil, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-67 and sunk off the west coast of Florida.  The next day one lifeboat with 14 men aboard was rescued by the vessel Sea Dream.  A total of 33 crewmen were lost.

Today the remains of the Empire Mica lie 64 miles from Panama City and 20 miles south of Cape San Blas in 115 feet of water.  Her bow section is intact, and divers will recognize her two boilers, propeller shaft, and rudder.  Her propeller was salvaged by Captain Laney Rinehart, who purchased the salvage rights to the vessel from the War Insurance Department for 600 pounds sterling, about $1,000.

Laney's recovery story is testament to his own persistence.  He started in 1981, and with the help of Jack Pounders, planned to blow the prop off the shaft.  After two explosions, the nut was off, but the huge propeller remained on the shaft.  In June, Laney and his crew went back to the wreck, and after two more explosions, the prop was left lying in the sand. Laney returned to the wreck once again with two 20,000 pound lift bags.  His plan was to lift the propeller, then tow it back to port.  After one bag was rigged, they found the second lift bag had been sabotaged.  Once again Laney returned to port without the propeller. Laney and Jack Pounders hired a 300 foot barge with a 190 ton crane and brought it to the site.  They dove and discovered that someone else had stolen the propeller.  Laney immediately contacted the U.S. Marshall, and they had the propeller located and impounded.  Six months later, a federal judge ruled in Laney's favor.  The huge propeller is now decorating the Captain Anderson restaurant in Panama City. 

Johnny, his dad, and I ventured out to Empire Mica. Even though the Gulf was a giant, glassy pond, visibility wasn’t that great.  The whims of the currents will often give one 100 feet visibility one day and 30 feet the next.  As we swam down to the wreck, clouds of minnows obscured much of the wreck making any attempt at photography a trying experience.  Our make shift camera housing leaked at about 50 to 75 feet so no photos were salvaged.

We explored the bow and bridge section where the first torpedo struck.  You must understand that the ship resembles very little of its former self.  Even still it was massive having never seen anything like it in our diving experience.  The bow is still intact but has broken away and tilts to starboard.  The rounded stern with its massive propeller shaft protruding towards the open sea also lies broken and tilted, an eerie look for its final resting place.

After WWII the Coast Guard blew up the stern and bridge of the ship, as they were so near the surface and created a hazard to navigation.  Rust and hurricanes managed to reduce what was left to a jumbled pile of iron and steel.  Only one small section between the bridge and the engine room still stood when we were there. We swam through it on our exploration of the wreck.  This large room, cavernous and eerily serene with sunlight filtering in through breaks in the hull, once held millions of gallons of gasoline.

Hundreds of snapper and grouper darted in and out of the thousands of hiding places along the ship. The big fish know the sight and sound of divers and the spear guns they carry.  They have witnessed the sight of their schoolmates on the end of a spear and want no part of it.

We saw a deadly Bull Shark (No. 1 man-eater of the shark family) cruising about.  If there were more, the water was so planktonic that we couldn’t see any more of them.  Only the steely barracudas approached us, teeth always bared, looking for a speared fish to steal if the opportunity arrived.

As we ascended, the wreck slowly receded into the depths, an oasis of abundant life in this sandy desert of the Gulf, and a ghostly metal tombstone to the 33 men and boys who lost their lives here many years ago.

Ice