Henry Bergh was owned by the War Shipping Administration, operated by the Norton Lilly Company, and chartered to the U.S. Navy for use as a transport. On the final voyage, she was bound to San Francisco from the South Pacific (by way of Honolulu), overloaded with 1,300 sailors returning from the war, as well as a crew of nearly 100. By the pre-dawn hours of May 31, 1944, she had been cruising through thick fog for 36 hours. Unknown to the captain, Joseph C. Chambers, his allowances for current and wind were in error. Bergh had set to the north by nearly 10 miles, and was heading straight for South Farallon Island at 11 knots. A faint whistle heard at 4:55 her way for five minutes, when a faint whistle was heard again, and almost immediately land was spied dead ahead. In spite of prompt evasive action, she ran hard aground on jagged rocks about 200 yards offshore, and the exertions of her engines full astern could not budge her. Although Henry Bergh's SOS had been received in San Francisco at 5:05 a.m. and help had been immediately dispatched, it was evident that none would arrive for some hours, and that abandoning ship was in order. The weather was fairly calm, and "the abandonment was so orderly it was more like a drill," one veteran remarking later, "after what we went through in the war,... this morning was mild." Passengers were shuttled ashore 25 at a time in each of the vessel's eight lifeboats, and by the time the first rescue craft had arrived on the scene at 8:00 a.m., 600 men had been landed. By early afternoon, all hands, had been safely picked up. A volunteer crew remained on board as a tug attempted without success to haul Henry Bergh off. Her hull had cracked at the No. 4 hatch by the time the last man aboard -- the captain -- had left. The resource of every man on board Henry Bergh was a remarkable achievement. Only two men were injured, and 35 required hospitalization for exposure. Delgado & Huller [2]