Qualla: SS Camden

SS Camden: Introduction

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She was dead in the water when the torpedo hit. On October 4, 1942, at 4:15 in the morning, the SS Camden -- a 6,653-ton tanker carrying 76,000 barrels of gasoline from San Pedro, California, to Puget Sound -- sat motionless off Coos Bay, Oregon, her engines stopped for repairs. Japanese submarine I-25 fired two torpedoes from the darkness. One missed. The other struck the starboard bow, and the forepeak fuel tank exploded. The Camden was suddenly on fire, drifting and sinking, her cargo of gasoline feeding flames that would burn for nearly a week. One crew member died in the attack. The rest abandoned ship and were rescued by a passing Swedish merchant vessel, the MV Kookaburra. But the Camden was not finished yet -- not quite.

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SS Camden: The Submarine That Attacked America

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I-25 was no ordinary submarine. Under Lieutenant Commander Meiji Tagami, the Japanese vessel had spent 1942 waging a one-boat campaign of terror along the Pacific Northwest coast that remains unique in the annals of American military history. On June 21, 1942, I-25 surfaced off t...

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SS Camden: Fire on the Water

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

When the torpedo detonated against the Camden's bow, the explosion ignited gasoline in the forward tanks. Flames engulfed the bow section and spread across the water's surface as fuel leaked from ruptured plating. The crew had no way to fight a fire fueled by tens of thousands of...

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SS Camden: The Long Tow North

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The tugboat Kenai took the Camden under tow, initially heading for Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River. But the tanker's draft had increased as she took on water, and the Columbia River bar -- already one of the most treacherous passages on the Pacific coast -- wa...

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SS Camden: A War Closer Than Anyone Thought

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The sinking of the Camden belongs to a chapter of World War II that most Americans have forgotten, if they ever knew it. The war in the Pacific is remembered for Midway, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima -- distant island battles fought thousands of miles from home. But in 1942, the enemy wa...

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