The Wreck of the Johanna Thorden
By Sigurd Towrie
(from The Orcadian dated 13 January 2000)

The loss of the Finnish vessel Johanna Thorden in the Pentland Firth 63 years ago yesterday is to be the subject of a half-day seminar in Kirkwall in July this year.

The M/S Johanna Thorden

The incident in which 30 people lost their lives, several being buried in Orkney, is the worst shipping disaster to hit the islands in peacetime and has been the subject of a five-year study by Finnish man Markku Hujala.

The planned seminar, he says, will air all his findings on the incident and illustrate the events that led up to the disaster. Using photographs and illustrations along with new material he claims have never been seen before, Mr Hujala hopes to raise awareness of the disaster and also shed some light on some of the unanswered questions.

“My uncle, now dead, raised my interest in this accident and when studying news on it I refused to accept simple explanations why it happened. We know now and this is why the story must be told,” he told The Orcadian.

On the morning of Tuesday, January 12, 1937, the Johanna Thorden, a 5,500 ton vessel laden with a cargo worth £2 million pounds, ran aground in the waters south of South Ronaldsay. But an element of uncertainty still surrounds the disaster.

At the time the survivors claimed the ship had gone aground on the Pentland Skerries – most probably the Outer Skerry – but local opinion was that the vessel had actually struck the Clett of Stroma, the bow section of the ship being observed there by the Longhope lifeboat later that day.

Returning from her maiden voyage, the Johanna Thorden sailed from New York on the evening of January 1, 1937, bound for Gothenburg in Sweden. After six days of fair weather, the ship came through harsh north-westerly gales until at around 5.45 am on January 12, hurricane-force southerly gales drove the Johanna Thorden aground in the Pentland Firth.

The shock of the impact rendered the ship’s wireless useless and prevented the transmission of an SOS.

While crewmen set off distress rockets, in a last desperate attempt to attract the attention of the nearby lighthouse keepers, wireless operator Goran Moliis started a fire on the deck using gasoline and a pile of trousers. The signals went unseen.

Below deck chaos reigned.

The engine room had now begun to flood and before long the power failed, plunging the stricken vessel into darkness.

“All was confusion for a few minutes,” said one survivor. “Everybody got very excited. Then the lights failed, showing that our engine room was flooded. The two women (wives of the chief engineer and the engine installer) appeared and they were crying bitterly. The little boys (the women’s sons) were not crying very much but just whimpering.”

At 6.15 am the first of the ship’s lifeboats was launched. Holding the two women and the two little boys as well as 21 members of the crew, the lifeboat carried its passengers not to safety but to their deaths.

An hour later the second lifeboat was launched with the remaining 13 passengers and crewmen on board. After a three-hour battle with the elements only eight men made it ashore. The captain of the Johanna Thorden, 55-year-old Captain Lahja Simola, was among the five men who perished.

Goran Moliis, who was on board this lifeboat said: “The boat upended three times in succession, throwing us all into the sea. We were washed ashore, along with the boat. Our captain and unfortunate comrades who died were battered so severely that I do not think theydrowned. They were probably killed in the first smash.”

The sight of the bedraggled men scrambling ashore was Orkney’s first notification of the disaster.

Mr John Peace, Whistlebrae, South Ronaldsay, saw the survivors and immediately fetched help. Before long a band of helpers had gathered on the shore to tend to the exhausted survivors – all of whom were suffering severe injuries caused by the mountainous seas battering them against the rocky shoreline.

Within 30 minutes five bodies had been found. Of these only two were recovered, the extreme weather conditions making retrieval of the others impossible.

By noon the Longhope lifeboat had been alerted and within 30 minutes was heading for the wreck. However, shortly after leaving the station the lifeboat was recalled after word was received that she was no longer needed.

The crew turned her back but at two o’ clock it became clear that the first of the Johanna Thorden’s lifeboats was still missing. The lifeboat sailed again and battling through stormy waters it passed the remains of the Johanna Thorden’s bow on Stroma but the search for the missing boat was fruitless.

At 7 am the following morning, Wednesday, January 13, watchers in Deerness spotted a boat by the Point of Bisber near Dingieshowe.

The missing boat came ashore later that day along with the bodies of three men. There were no signs of survivors and for days afterwards the bodies of those who had perished were washed ashore, some found in South Ronaldsay, others turning up in Flotta, Copinsay, Deerness and Sanday.

Although most of the recovered bodies were returned to Finland for burial, according to Markku Hujala, three unknown sailors remain at St Peter’s Kirk, South Ronaldsay, and on Flotta.