SS ''San Flaviano'' was a British oil tanker owned by

Eagle Oil and Shipping Company Eagle Oil and Shipping Company was a United Kingdom merchant shipping company that operated oil tankers between the Gulf of Mexico and the UK. Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray founded it as the Eagle Oil Transport Company in 1912 and sold i ...

, a British subsidiary of

Royal Dutch Shell Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Yo ...

. She was built by

Cammell Laird Cammell Laird is a British shipbuilding company. It was formed from the merger of Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and Johnson Cammell & Co of Sheffield at the turn of the twentieth century. The company also built railway rolling stock until 1929, ...

in England in 1956 and attacked and sunk by the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and eas ...

in 1958. ''San Flaviano'' had a

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

, , built by Cammell Laird in the same year. The two ships were part of a substantial investment programme to renew Eagle Oil's fleet with larger and more modern tankers. Between 1950 and 1960 the company took delivery of at least 16 new tankers.

Building

Cammell Laird built ''San Flaviano'' as yard number 1242. She was launched on 12 June 1956 and completed that September. Her registered length was , her beam was and her depth was . Her

tonnage Tonnage is a measure of the cargo-carrying capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on ''tuns'' or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically ref ...

s were , and . ''San Flaviano'' was a

steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

. A pair of

steam turbine A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...

s drove her single

screw A screw and a bolt (see '' Differentiation between bolt and screw'' below) are similar types of fastener typically made of metal and characterized by a helical ridge, called a ''male thread'' (external thread). Screws and bolts are used to fa ...

. Her turbines' combined power output was rated at 8,250 SHP, giving her a speed of . Eagle Oil registered ''San Flaviano'' in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. Her UK

official number Official numbers are ship identifier numbers assigned to merchant ships by their flag state, country of registration. Each country developed its own official numbering system, some on a national and some on a port-by-port basis, and the formats hav ...

was 187459, which later became the IMO number 1187459.

Bombed and sunk by the CIA

''San Flaviano''s career was cut short in 1958. On 28 April ''San Flaviano'' was in Balikpapan Harbour, in the East Kalimantan Province of

, when a

Douglas B-26 Invader The Douglas A-26 Invader (designated B-26 between 1948 and 1965) is an American twin-engined light bomber and ground attack aircraft. Built by Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II, the Invader also saw service during several major Col ...

bomber aircraft, flown by the CIA and painted black and with no markings, bombed and sank her. ''San Flaviano'' had nearly finished discharging a cargo of crude oil, leaving her tanks full of highly flammable gas. The CIA aircraft hit ''San Flaviano'' with one or more 500-pound (227-kg) bombs amidships on her starboard side. Fire and explosions spread rapidly along that side of the ship, either destroying her starboard lifeboats or making them inaccessible. Nevertheless, her officers and crew launched both port lifeboats within four minutes, successfully evacuating everyone including a passenger, the Chief Officer's wife. ''San Flaviano'' sank near the entrance of Balikpapan harbour. In response, Royal Dutch Shell suspended its tanker service to Balikpapan and evacuated shore-based wives and families to Singapore. Most of ''San Flaviano''s complement were also evacuated to Singapore, travelling on two oil tankers of

Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Co Ltd is a private company owned by Royal Dutch Shell. History Around 1898 the company became responsible for the ships of Shell Transport and Trading. In 1907 it continued to be responsible for the trade in oil by-produc ...

, another of Royal Dutch Shell's British subsidiaries. The first 26 from ''San Flaviano'' left that same day on , which had had a narrow escape in the same air raid. Another 24 from ''San Flaviano'' followed a few days later on , leaving the Master (Captain Jack Bright) and his senior officers as the only people from ''San Flaviano'' still in Balikpapan. In June 1958 both the Indonesian and UK governments claimed that the aircraft had been flown by

Indonesian rebels Indonesian is anything of, from, or related to Indonesia, an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It may refer to: * Indonesians, citizens of Indonesia ** Native Indonesians, diverse groups of local inhabitants of the archipelago ** Indonesian ...

. In fact only the radio operator was from the Permesta rebels in

North Sulawesi North Sulawesi ( id, Sulawesi Utara) is a province of Indonesia. It is located on the Minahasa Peninsula of Sulawesi, south of the Philippines and southeast of Sabah, Malaysia. It borders the Philippine province of Davao Occidental and Soccsks ...

. The B-26, its bombs and its pilot, former

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

officer

William H. Beale William Henry Beale Jr. (October 25, 1920 – April 6, 1962) was a US military and paramilitary aviator. In the Second World War, he was in the USAAF and flew bombing missions in the northern Pacific theater. In the Permesta rebellion in Indonesi ...

, were sent by the

as part of US

covert Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controvers ...

support for the rebellion. The CIA pilots had orders to target commercial shipping to drive foreign merchant ships away from Indonesian waters, thereby weakening the Indonesian economy and destabilising the Indonesian government of President

Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...

. Shell's suspension of operations and partial evacuation of personnel was exactly what the CIA attack was intended to achieve. For some months previously, UK Prime Minister

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had supported US policy to aid Permesta. On 6 May 1958, more than a week after the CIA sank ''San Flaviano'', Lloyd secretly told US Secretary of State

John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...

that this was still his position. On 18 May, Indonesian forces shot down a different Permesta B-26 and captured its CIA pilot,

Allen Pope Allen Lawrence Pope (born October 20, 1928) is an American retired military and paramilitary aviator. He rose to international attention as the subject of a diplomatic dispute between the United States and Indonesia after the B-26 Invader aircraf ...

. Nevertheless, in June 1958 both Indonesia and the UK publicly claimed that the aircraft had been flown by

, concealing the CIA involvement of which both governments were well aware.

References

Sources

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:San Flaviano, SS 1956 ships Central Intelligence Agency operations False flag operations Guided Democracy in Indonesia Maritime incidents in 1958 Maritime incidents in Indonesia Ships built on the River Mersey Shell plc Ships sunk by US aircraft Steam turbine-powered ships Steamships of the United Kingdom

Building

Bombed and sunk by the CIA

See also

References

Sources