| USS ST AUGUSTINE (January 6, 1944)
Built as a luxury steel hulled yacht in 1929 and once owned by Barbara Hutton the Woolworth heiress. It was sold to the US Navy in 1940 and converted to a naval patrol vessel for coastal defence and convoy escort duties. While on escort duty during a full westerly gale off the coast of Delaware she was in collision with the Trinidad bound oil tanker the SS Camas Meadows which struck the Augustine on her starboard side when off Cape May, New Jersey. The vessel sank within four minutes taking to the bottom 115 men of her 145 man crew.
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On weald of Kent I watched once more
Again I heard that grumbling roar
Of fighter planes; yet none were near
And all around the sky was clear
Borne on the wind a whisper came
'Though men grow old, they stay the same'
And then I knew, unseen to eye
The ageless Few were sweeping by
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