Built in 1920, the S. S. John Worthington was a 447 foot long tanker owned by Standard Oil. She made 20 voyages during the war before she was torpedoed off Brazil on May 27, 1943. The torpedo was fired by the German submarine U-154. The explosion blew a hole 30 feet by 10 feet in her side, buckled the deck and pushed fragments out the port side but only a few of the crew suffered minor injuries. Despite a hole the size of a house, the Worthington's crew sailed her all the way to Galveston where it was eventually determined that she was beyond repair.
After being stripped and partly salvaged, the ship was abandoned behind St Josephs Island where she eventually succumbed to the sea. The water depth at the shipwreck site is 25 feet, and the depth to the wrecks is 10 feet in places.
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