Talk:USC&GS Fathomer (1904)

Baynain not Boynain

I've corrected the name of Baynain and her owners- Philippine Cutch Corporation, Baliwasan, Zamboanga. Cutch is the fibrous base of a tropical plant used in herbs and medicines. There was no ship called Boynain. If the person who keeps changing it back maintains this is wrong please cite sources and details of supposed Boynain (date of build, gross tonnage, flag, ON etc). Mine are Lloyds Register (primary), Merchant Vessels of the US (primary), Starke-Schell indices (secondary), Merchant Ships of the World in Colour by Laurence Dunn (secondary) to name but a few. Ship was built 1912, 659 gross tons ex Kilcloher ex Channel Queen ON 181837. 27.99.36.200 (talk) 03:01, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

The whole account is not supported by references. That said, you may be correct though a quick search has not given a clear reference. You appear to have an error in the official number. It was 135145 in Lloyd's 1931 and here. I'm pretty sure 181837 was CS Ocean Layer. As for whether "Dutch" or "Cutch"? I'll just eliminate that until we can resolve by reference. The ship's owner in this bit is not particularly relevant. I'll see if I can find a reference for the incident itself, leaving it in for now. I see even parts I did years ago are not fully referenced with in line cites. As a note, registry details of Fathomer. Palmeira (talk) 13:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Got reference supporting Baynain being Cutch owned. Site cited seems to have good citations itself. Palmeira (talk) 14:04, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Palmeira: Your understanding of Official numbers is incorrect. ONs are issued by the Flag State and are only retained while the ship remains under that flag. The last entry of Baynain under 135145 which was a British Flag ON was in Lloyds Register 1932-33. From 1933 the ship was under US flag and had a different ON ie 181837. You can check Lloyds Registers/Lloyds Confidential Indices (if you can access the latter) to confirm. From 1933 the ship was owned by Bay Shipping Company which was managed by F L Zimmerman in Zamboanga who was a Manager of Philippine Cutch Company. (George L Kerr, the President, was nominal owner of the ship under British Flag in 1931, presumably pending flag transfer or possibly because Baynain was intended to operate in British controlled North Borneo as well as Dutch Borneo and PI). The ship transferred to Philippine Cutch Corp in 1940, sold to Harrison & Crossfield, North Borneo later that year, and was seized by a Japanese subchaser off Tarakan 11 Jan 1942, renamed "Heinan Maru" 併南丸 and sunk by gunfire from US submarine "Gar" 8 Dec 1942 7 miles S of Cape Talok, east coast of Borneo.27.99.36.200 (talk) 23:57, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I understand official numbers quite well. I did jump to the conclusion Ocean Layer had the U.S. ON. You mention finding the official number and Merchant Vessels of the United States (That link has the most complete holdings, but a clunky, slow, lousy interface.) and a search of 1933-34, 1935-36, and 1937-1938 shows no hits for that number. Baynain is listed in the 1933-34 register, page 1135, under "Philippine Vessels" with registry information that includes no official numbers at all. Did you find the vessel with that number in another year? I am suspecting something I have run across in other matters. A separate Philippine registry during that colonial period. If I recall, there was a separate Philippine register maintained for Philippine owned vessels operating in the region. If you got the 181837 from LR and not MVUS that may be the source and it is not actually a U.S. ON. Unfortunately most of the records of that period maintained in the Philippines do not seem to be available on the web or even U.S. archives. I've run into that wall on pre WW II military details. Understandable with rather quick defeat and years of occupation. Lots of people did not survive, much less records. Palmeira (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2020 (UTC)"

Sorry, I tried to shorten the link to the page and that did not work. This should: page 1135.

The ON came from Lloyds Register not MVUS, that as you note do not generally list ONs. As to whether it is an official US ON this is hard to say. (Lloyds do make the occasional error but it is rare). Philippine island traders ONs did not generally show in Lloyds. But Baynain from the time she was purchased appears to have operated internationally to British North Borneo, the DEI and perhaps further afield. My suspicion is the ship was allocated a US ON for this reason. The number was probably from a bloc allocated to the Philippine sub registry, which is why it would be out of sequence.

The issue of record keeping is indeed a vexed one. The final fate of the Fathomer is a case in point. Two sets of Japanese records show a ship called Omi Maru 近江丸 that was salvaged from unknown location and converted to a cargo ship operated by the IJA. One record states ship was ex USS Fathomer (ファソマ) the other ex Iloilo dredge Banan (ブアマン). Which is correct? If she did indeed become Omi Maru then it is known this ship was sunk at Macajalar Bay 9 Sep 1944. Until such time as a diver finds the wreck and is able to provide precise info on the ship, or more definitive records emerge, then the identity remains unknown. 27.99.33.57 (talk) 23:39, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

In MVUS the ON is the first column (A llnk avoiding that awful interface!) with signal second. None is given for those special Philippine Vessel sections and of course not for government vessels that appear after the commercial vessels. The listing for the C&GS (Cannot have an effective interface and good quality "print"!), includes Fathomer showing it owned by the Philippine government with an * comment. An interesting feature is that even vessels with an ON bought by the government apparently lose the number — and (if I recall) some few gained a new one if sold and registered commercial. As you can see with the 1922 contents the Philippine listing was not a regular feature earlier. The Philippine bloc sounds interesting, but I have a feeling — will have to check — that the number in question has fairly close numbers in the U.S. registry. It would be confusing if the Philippine U.S. Commonwealth used duplicate numbers, but stranger things happen.

As for records, I dug into the U.S. Army fleet in the Southwest Pacific, including into the Archives. Somewhere in my digital files or a box of paper I have a report that many of the records of the Army in Australia and SWPA were lost as the war either closed or shortly after. Years later I ran into a diver site that explored an Army FS type on a remote reef that was full of boxes and file cabinets with remains of paper. I was never able to confirm any connection. Worse, large repositories of hard copy were and are destroyed without digitization. Palmeira (talk) 04:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)