"Wheat & Saltwater Don't Mix": The wreck of S.S. Dominator

(Video courtesy of the California Wreck Divers Association)

Location: Palos Verdes, California

Laying on the shores of Rancho Palos Verdes in Southern California is a site known to locals as the Los Angeles "Shipwreck Trail". A pleasant hike down a rocky strip of coastline where you pass by innumerable pieces of rusty jagged metal, a strange tractor-like machine, huge chunks of rusted steel and hull framing, some as large as a car. This wreckage is all that remains of the cargo ship S.S. Dominator, which ran aground here in the fog due to a navigational error in 1961.

(The World War II Liberty Ship "Jeremiah O'Brien", Identical to the 'Melville Jacoby' is a museum in San Francisco, California)

HER STORY:

The Dominator was launched as the S.S. Melville Jacoby, on March 31st, 1944. She was of the type of cargo vessel known as a Liberty Ship and became a part of the convoy systems which traveled across the North Atlantic to carry supplies to allied forces fighting in Europe against Nazi Germany. The ship had a fairly uneventful career and crossed the Atlantic multiple times without serious incident, even though several of her sisters were to be struck down by U-boats. Following the war, the Melville Jacoby was put up for sale as surplus, and like many other Liberty Ships of her type she ended up continuing her career as a cargo carrier but under the banner of a new country and name. Being purchased by a Panamanian-based shipping firm, she was renamed SS Victoria, then SS North Queen, then again in 1953 and she finally earned her final name as the SS Dominator. The Dominator was a frequent traveler along the West Coast of the United States. Often times she was seen to pick up lumber from the Northwest, and other times wheat, grain, and other general goods which were shipped to or from central America.

(S.S. Dominator: Image Courtesy of Vancouver Archives) Dominators' career, which had now gone on for close to 20 years, came to a dramatic halt on March 13, 1961. On this day, the S.S. Dominator, her cargo holds full with a general cargo of refrigerated beef, and a large shipment of wheat was making her way to the port of Los Angeles from Vancouver, Canada. The ship, which did not have radar, was attempting to 'round the point' of Palos Verdes in a thick fog and make it safely into port. In those days, as sometimes today, sailors rely on a process called 'dead-reckoning to navigate their ships in unfamiliar waters or uncertain situations. The Captain, fearful that if he stopped his ship in the fog, he might be struck outside the busy harbor, continued sailing ahead into the gloom, completely unaware that his navigation was off, and the ship was actually a few miles behind the point rather than in front of it. Turning his bow in the direction of what he assumed to be the safety of the harbor, he instead was met with the sheer cliffs of Rancho Palos Verdes.

(Dominator Aground: Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Times Archives) Reversing the engines and turning the ship proved a futile move, and the Dominator impaled herself on a shelf of rocks just below the surface. The tidal surge in this area is intense and it did not take long for the massive ship to be swung around and thrown sideways onto the rocky bottom.

(S.S. Dominator: Image Courtesy of LIFE Magazine archives)

For the next two days the Captain, crew, and United States Coast guard attempted to refloat the ship and save their cargo while the public watched in fascination. No matter what they tried, however, the ship would not budge. Worse still... the pounding of the waves began to cause the ship to flex and crack under the intense pressure. Liberty Ships were manufactured during World War Two over a period of merely 60 days due to a relatively new process involving welding steel plates as opposed to riveting them like older ships. The result was a rapid manufacturing process that produced a ship fit for war, but not for long-term stressful sea conditions. As a result of the manner with which she was made, the Dominator was beginning to crack under the relentless pounding of the surf.

(Dominator Aground: Image Courtesy of University of Southern California Archives) After a short while, the ship was officially abandoned and sold at auction, however, due to a bit of bumbling on behalf of the vessel's owners, both the SHIP and its CARGO were sold separately. This caused a dual ownership and conflict of interest between the two salvage parties. Stories and tales abound of gunplay, threats of violence, coast guard intervention, and bullying between the rivaling parties who both claimed ownership of the vessel and for the most part refused to comply or cooperate with the other. The Dominator continued to break apart, slowly at first, but then water reached her cargo of wheat. The combination of wheat and saltwater combined to fill the lower hold with an incredible amount of dough. The sides of the ship buckled and she began to break apart at an accelerated rate, and after only a few months of being aground, the coup' de gras finished her off. A fire.

(The Wreck of the Dominator: Image Courtesy USC Image Archives) Some reports say a transient living aboard started the fire, others say a faulty bit of electrical wiring, but in either case, the resulting fire, which spread to the paint locker, left the Dominator a charred hulk. Salvage efforts continued off and on well into the breakup of the ship. Within a year of running aground, the Dominator was in two pieces and burnt to the bare metal.

(Bow section of Dominator Wreck: Image Courtesy of USC Image Archives)

When she split in half her ruined cargo of wheat and meat spilled into the shallow surf and became an all-you-can-eat buffet for the marine life. Many old-timers will tell stories of the enormous fish and mind-boggling lobsters which were caught in or around the wreck. Fattened by the abundance of food in the water. In the next 5 years after she ran aground, the two halves of the ship continued on their fated journey with the shoreline, and tragically a death or two were reported to have occurred from kids/teens who foolishly tried to climb on the wreck, either to fall or be swept below the wreck by an unseen undertow.

(Images of Dominators Bow: Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons) The Dominator slowly moved closer and closer to the shore, shedding pieces and grinding herself apart the closer she got. A large storm hit the site a year or so later following her abandonment and a large salvage barge with a crane was swept from the side of the ship and thrown onto the treacherous coastline where it can be seen even today, the metal of its gears and treads forever frozen by the endless spray of salt and sea. The bow section of Dominator eventually came to rest, on her side, on the rocky beach around 1965. Forever facing the sea, she stubbornly remained for the next several decades in defiance of the wind and waves which betrayed her to this final resting place.