Luganville, Vanuatu
People come to Luganville for a lot of different reasons. For most divers it has to do with one thing, one wreck.
With a length of 200 meters and a gross tonnage of 21,936, she is more than twice the length of the National Geographic Endeavour and about 7 times heavier. She is the SS President Coolidge.
Launched in 1931 as a luxurious cruise liner providing trans-pacific passage for her guests, “the President” made a great retreat for people not so unlike ourselves. Wanting to see other places of the world, relax and just enjoy the feeling of being at sea.
In 1941 when the war activities increased the President Coolidge was used for occasional voyages as a transport ship, but it wasn’t until after the attack of Pearl Harbour that she was fully commissioned as a transport ship for the reinforcing garrisons in the Pacific. She was stripped of her finery, painted gun-metal grey and armed with guns mainly to defend herself. She was never intended to see any action, and in October she sailed from the home port of San Francisco, California for New Caledonia and Espiritu Santo. With a civil Captain understandingly afraid of enemy submarines and with little military information, she was run upon a “friendly” mine. The Captain ran her aground the reef not too loose her and 4998 men could slowly and safely get off. In a sudden movement, the President Coolidge heavily sank and started to slide down the slope. Two men went down with her, a man in the engine room that was killed by the first mine blast, and the second, an artillery captain who had safely gotten off the Coolidge when he learned that there were still men onboard. After helping others to get out, he was unable to get out himself when she listed and sank on October 26, 1942.
That’s the history that I’m trying to understand and replay in my head as I’m slowly gliding down along a thick rope in murky water towards a darkness that hides the second largest divable wreck for recreational divers, having just walked out over the same reef that almost 5000 men walked over more than 60 years ago.
Suddenly out of nowhere the enormous bow is showing her face under me. More and more body is getting visible as I’m gently gliding deeper and deeper. I’m passing the great big anchor, the 3-inch guns that were most likely never fired. A lion fish swims out of a small hole and crosses my path, the fish swims into another hole and back into its home. For a few seconds, my mind is set back on marine life and fascinating creatures, but it won’t take long until I’m right back where I started. I can clearly see all those people who sat in great chairs sipping on a cocktail, dancing in great ballroom dresses or walking the promenade decks hand in hand. Swimming through the rails of the ship's starboard side promenade deck, I can see the soldiers walking the decks in their helmets and with their rifles hanging off their shoulders, smoking a cigarette speaking about a girl back home or just looking out over the endless ocean. Looking below me I can see the rifles and the helmets still lying on the deck covered year after year by silt, corals and algae. We continue down just a little deeper, and it gets darker. Colours start to disappear, and it starts to feel like it goes on and on straight down into the darkness. As we’re turning around heading slowly up over the side of the ship, a school of Great Barracudas are hovering a few meters over our heads. They look angry and with an under-bite they always remind me of Bruce Springsteen.
As we’re heading back to the beginning and the line that is pointing towards light and colours, I’m wondering what it must have been sailing onboard her. Before she was broken, when she was still good, before she was stripped and repainted. She must have cut that surface with elegance and grace. Just like for us, our little blue ship is part of our lives, just like that, the President Coolidge was part of somebody else’s life, their favourite ship, their escape from everyday life, giving them the time of their lives.
May she rest peacefully…
People come to Luganville for a lot of different reasons. For most divers it has to do with one thing, one wreck.
With a length of 200 meters and a gross tonnage of 21,936, she is more than twice the length of the National Geographic Endeavour and about 7 times heavier. She is the SS President Coolidge.
Launched in 1931 as a luxurious cruise liner providing trans-pacific passage for her guests, “the President” made a great retreat for people not so unlike ourselves. Wanting to see other places of the world, relax and just enjoy the feeling of being at sea.
In 1941 when the war activities increased the President Coolidge was used for occasional voyages as a transport ship, but it wasn’t until after the attack of Pearl Harbour that she was fully commissioned as a transport ship for the reinforcing garrisons in the Pacific. She was stripped of her finery, painted gun-metal grey and armed with guns mainly to defend herself. She was never intended to see any action, and in October she sailed from the home port of San Francisco, California for New Caledonia and Espiritu Santo. With a civil Captain understandingly afraid of enemy submarines and with little military information, she was run upon a “friendly” mine. The Captain ran her aground the reef not too loose her and 4998 men could slowly and safely get off. In a sudden movement, the President Coolidge heavily sank and started to slide down the slope. Two men went down with her, a man in the engine room that was killed by the first mine blast, and the second, an artillery captain who had safely gotten off the Coolidge when he learned that there were still men onboard. After helping others to get out, he was unable to get out himself when she listed and sank on October 26, 1942.
That’s the history that I’m trying to understand and replay in my head as I’m slowly gliding down along a thick rope in murky water towards a darkness that hides the second largest divable wreck for recreational divers, having just walked out over the same reef that almost 5000 men walked over more than 60 years ago.
Suddenly out of nowhere the enormous bow is showing her face under me. More and more body is getting visible as I’m gently gliding deeper and deeper. I’m passing the great big anchor, the 3-inch guns that were most likely never fired. A lion fish swims out of a small hole and crosses my path, the fish swims into another hole and back into its home. For a few seconds, my mind is set back on marine life and fascinating creatures, but it won’t take long until I’m right back where I started. I can clearly see all those people who sat in great chairs sipping on a cocktail, dancing in great ballroom dresses or walking the promenade decks hand in hand. Swimming through the rails of the ship's starboard side promenade deck, I can see the soldiers walking the decks in their helmets and with their rifles hanging off their shoulders, smoking a cigarette speaking about a girl back home or just looking out over the endless ocean. Looking below me I can see the rifles and the helmets still lying on the deck covered year after year by silt, corals and algae. We continue down just a little deeper, and it gets darker. Colours start to disappear, and it starts to feel like it goes on and on straight down into the darkness. As we’re turning around heading slowly up over the side of the ship, a school of Great Barracudas are hovering a few meters over our heads. They look angry and with an under-bite they always remind me of Bruce Springsteen.
As we’re heading back to the beginning and the line that is pointing towards light and colours, I’m wondering what it must have been sailing onboard her. Before she was broken, when she was still good, before she was stripped and repainted. She must have cut that surface with elegance and grace. Just like for us, our little blue ship is part of our lives, just like that, the President Coolidge was part of somebody else’s life, their favourite ship, their escape from everyday life, giving them the time of their lives.
May she rest peacefully…
