MS Stag Hound (1941)

Stag Hound was laid down at Sun Shipbuilding of Chester, Pennsylvania.^[3] Built under a United States Maritime Commission contract (MC hull number 116) on behalf of United States Lines of New York,^[3][4] she was launched on 18 October 1941.^[3] After Stag Hound's September 1942 completion, she was registered at New York and armed with one 5-inch (130 mm) and one 3-inch (76 mm) deck gun and six machine guns, and took on fourteen Naval Armed Guardsmen to man the guns.^[1]

On 28 February 1943, Stag Hound left New York for Rio de Janeiro with a 5,800-long-ton (5,893.072 t) cargo that included dynamite, trucks, gas, and steel. At 19:15 on 3 March, near position 16°44′S 36°33′W / 16.733°S 36.550°W / -16.733; -36.550, Barbarigo hit Stag Hound with two torpedoes. They destroyed the steering gear and the ship's antenna, and the ship's master, Harold T. McCaw, ordered the fatally damaged ship abandoned. The ship's 10 officers (including McCaw), 49 men, and 25 Naval Armed Guardsmen boarded two lifeboats and one life raft ten minutes after the attack. Barbarigo launched a coup de grâce that hit the still-floating ship, causing her to sink stern-first at 19:50, 35 minutes after the initial attack. After 25 hours in the water, all hands were rescued by the Argentinian steamship Rio Colorado and were landed at Rio de Janeiro on 8 March.^[1]

• Browning, Robert M (1996). U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-087-8. OCLC 32310902.