Worker Wednesday

May 1942 was the busiest month of the war for U-boat activity in the Gulf of Mexico. The SS Alcoa Puritan was just one of the vessels that fell victim to a U-boat this month 70 years ago. The May 1942 cover of The Eureka News Bulletin shows a steamship ablaze after an encounter with a U-boat; the steamship’s crew members are adrift in a life raft. On 12 May 1942, the tanker SS Virginia was sunk by U-507 as it entered the mouth of the Mississippi—the closest such attack the Louisiana coast would see during WWII. Twenty-six crewmen were killed.

For more posts about the publications of Higgins Industries and production on the home front during WWII, see the series Worker Wednesday.

Post by Curator Kimberly Guise.