{"id":136,"date":"2026-03-27T15:52:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T23:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ded3590.inmotionhosting.com\/~lostships\/?p=136"},"modified":"2026-05-01T14:56:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:56:55","slug":"donbass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/?p=136","title":{"rendered":"Donbass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The T2-SA-E1-type oil tanker Beacon Rock<\/em> was built in 1944 at Kaiser\u2019s Swan Island shipyard near Portland, Oregon. Originally owned by the U.S. War Shipping Administration (WSA), the 523-foot, 10,448-ton tanker was transferred to the Soviet Union a few months after she was launched.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Donbass\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Renamed Donbass, <\/em>she carried oil and deck loads of aircraft from the U.S. West Coast to port of Vladivostok on the USSR’s Pacific coast.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 17, 1946, the tanker was on a voyage from San Pedro to Vladivostok when she broke in half in the Gulf of Alaska, about 300 miles southeast of Adak. Fourteen crew members, plus her captain, were lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stern remained afloat and, five days later, another tanker, the Puente Hills<\/em>, arrived on scene, took the surviving 23 crew members and passengers aboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five days later the tanker Puente Hills <\/em>sighted the distressed vessel’s flares, found the stern half, put a line aboard, and then took the Donbass<\/em>\u2019 stern section on a difficult tow for Puget Sound that lasted 26 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those pulled off the ill-fated Donbass<\/em>\u2019 stern section was Galina Pervina, the tanker\u2019s stewardess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wife of a Soviet Army officer on duty in Berlin, Pervina gave birth to a 7-pound girl, Titiana, with the help of one of the Puente Hills<\/em>\u2019 officers who assisted with the delivery while receiving radio instructions from the U.S. Coast Guard in Seattle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Puente Hill<\/em>‘s crew and her operator, the General Steamship Corporation, claimed the wreck as a prize and their claim was upheld by a Federal Court. The prize fund was established when the WSA paid $110,000 to buy back its own vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after, Pacific Gas & Electric bought the Donbass<\/em>‘ severed stern at an auction for $125,000 and later had it towed down the coast to Eureka, California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the next 10 years, she served as a floating electrical generator with her 6,700-horsepower steam turboelectric powerplant augmented PG&E’s electricity supply to the city via a bank of transformers on the adjacent dock. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the late 1950s, the utility company was well into plans to build a 65-megawatt nuclear power plant south of Eureka, near the mouth of Humboldt Bay, to supply electricity to much of northern California. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the Donbass <\/em>was deemed superfluous and in January 1959, she was towed to the National Metal & Steel Corp. scrap yard on Terminal Island at the Port of Los Angeles and scrapped.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In February 1946, the stern section of the Russian tanker Donbass was recovered after the ship split in two in a Northern Pacific storm. Towed to the U.S. West Coast, the stern was later acquired by Pacific Gas & Electric and moved to Northern California where her working power plant was used to supply electricity to the City of Eureka for more than a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostships.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}