The SS President Coolidge: From Liner to Wreck off Espiritu Santo

The ship

The President Coolidge was launched in 1931 as a passenger liner on the transpacific run — 199 metres, two funnels, a swimming pool, a barber shop. In 1941 she was requisitioned and converted to carry troops, and the fittings were left largely where they were.

26 October 1942

Approaching Luganville on Espiritu Santo with more than 5,000 men aboard, she entered the harbour through an unswept channel and struck two American mines. The captain ran her onto a reef and ordered an evacuation. All but two men got off — a fireman killed in the initial explosion and Captain Elwood Euart, who went back for men trapped in the infirmary and did not come out.

The ship slid off the reef and settled on her port side on a slope.

The wreck now

She lies from about 20 metres at the bow to 70 at the stern, close enough to shore to be reached by walking in. Cargo holds still carry jeeps, guns and helmets; the promenade deck, the pool and the ceramic relief known as The Lady are all intact enough to recognise.

The depth and the size make this a technical site, and the deeper parts are beyond recreational limits. Practical context is in diving.

Million Dollar Point

A short distance along the same coast, the Americans bulldozed equipment into the sea when they withdrew — trucks, bulldozers, cranes — after the offer to sell it locally was declined. The debris field is still there and is dived as a site in its own right. Both are consequences of the same episode: see the Second World War.

Before the war

The Coolidge and her sister the President Hoover were the largest liners the United States had built for the transpacific run. She carried around a thousand passengers in considerable comfort: two swimming pools, a beauty salon, a gymnasium, a soda fountain. Much of it was still aboard when she sank.

The mines

The Segond Channel had been mined against Japanese submarines. The Coolidge’s captain, Henry Nelson, had not been told which entrance was safe — the signals warning him had not reached the ship — and he took the direct approach. Two mines struck within a minute.

The evacuation

Nelson ran the ship aground on a coral shelf and ordered everyone off. Men walked down the listing hull and waded ashore. The evacuation was so orderly that troops left equipment behind on the assumption they would return for it, which is why the holds are still full.

Two men died. Fireman Robert Reid was killed by the first explosion. Captain Elwood Euart, an artillery officer, went back into the ship for men trapped in the infirmary, got them out and could not get out himself. His body is still aboard and the site is treated accordingly.

Diving it

The bow sits at about 20 metres, the stern at 70, on a slope, lying to port. The promenade deck, the first-class dining saloon with the ceramic relief known as The Lady, the cargo holds with jeeps and guns, and the engine room are all penetrable, and progressively deeper.

It is not a casual dive. Depth, penetration and the ship’s size all compound, operators run a staged progression, and the wreck has a fatality record that reflects what happens when that is ignored. See diving.

Why it is still intact

She sank in sheltered water, upright enough to hold her shape, and salvage was never economic. Eighty years of marine growth have softened the structure but the layout is still legible deck by deck, which is the reason divers come from the other side of the world for it.

The court of inquiry

Captain Nelson was initially blamed for the loss and later cleared: the signals telling him which channel was safe had not been passed to his ship. The finding did little for him at the time and the wreck cost the United States a troopship and most of an infantry regiment’s equipment on the eve of a campaign.