The Pauline Marie lies on her starboard side, with the bow pointing north. She rises some 30 ft off the sandy bottom and can be easily penetrated.
The vessel was donated by Seacoast Products - a menhaden fishing concern, which had plants in Port Monmouth NJ and Lewes Delaware. They had planned to use it as a purse seiner, but were bought out by Omega Proteins in 1984. Omega apparently scrapped the vessel instead. The original military designation, and the original civilian owner are not known.
Menhaden, or "bunker", is an inedible type of herring which was processed into fish meal and oil, used in fertilizers and animal feeds. The plant in Port Monmouth ( which gave off a horrendous stench that pervaded the entire area ) was torn down around 1987, and the site is now condominiums. The Menhaden fishery is today greatly reduced, probably due to over-fishing.
The
Pauline Marie was a WWII-vintage AKL - Camano-class light cargo ship, which were versions of the Army FS-class vessels. Several were later converted to electronic listening ships, including the infamous Pueblo, which was illegally seized by North Korea in 1968.
Another sister, USS Hewell (AKL 14) served as the fictitious "USS Reluctant" ( "The Bucket" ) in the 1955 movie version of Mister Roberts, starring James Cagney and Henry Fonda. The film, based on a play and novel, humorously documented life on a Navy transport in the backwaters of World War II - travels "from tedium to apathy and back again, with a side trip to monotony."
USS Pueblo remains docked as a "museum" in Pyongyang, North Korea.
An AKL-class freighter in World War II livery. AKLs served through Vietnam
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Copyright © 1996-2008 Rich Galiano
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