1941 — Dec 7, cargo ship Cynthia Olson sunk by Japanese sub, Pacific, btw. Tacoma & Honolulu- 35

–35 Amer. Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged 1939 to 1941.
–33 crew
— 2 U.S. Army
–35 Clancey. HyperWar: The Official Chronology of the US Navy in [WW] II. “Chapter III: 1941.”
–35 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, AK. “Army Air Force To Be 2,000,000.” 2-7-1942, p. 6, c.1.
–33 crew
— 2 sailors [incorrect; actually Army privates]
–35 Moore. A Careless Word, A Needless Sinking. 1983. Table extracted by armed-guard.com.
–33 crew
— 2 US Army
–35 Nelson, Craig. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness. 2016, p. 208.
–33 crew
— 2 army privates (a radioman and a medic)

Narrative Information

Chen, C. Peter. World War II Database. “7 Dec 1941”:
“American steam-powered schooner Cynthia Olson, under charter of the US Army, was shelled and sunk by Japanese submarine I-26 with no survivors; two US Army personnel were on board. [CPC].”

Clancey. HyperWar: The Official Chronology of the US Navy in [WW] II. Chapter III: 1941:
“Unarmed U.S. Army-chartered steam schooner Cynthia Olson is shelled and sunk by Japanese submarine I 26 about 1,000 miles northwest of Diamond Head, Honolulu, T.H., 33°42’N, 145°29’W. She is the first U.S. merchantman to be sunk by a Japanese submarine in World War II. There are no survivors from the 33-man crew or the two Army passengers.”

Moore. A Careless Word, A Needless Sinking. 1983. Table extracted by armed-guard.com.
“.S. Cynthia Olson Torpedoed 12/7/41 Steam Schooner Crew 33, US Army 2.”

Nelson: “At around 0730 [Dec 7], a Matson line passenger ship, the SS Lurline, was crossing the Pacific on its northeasterly route to San Francisco when the officer of the watch…heard an SOS over the radio…The SS Cynthia Olson, a 2,140-ton steam schooner ferrying lumber to Hawaii from Tacoma for the American army was being attacked by a submarine.

“Commander Minoru Yokota, captain of Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-26, was with sister sub I-10 monitoring the Aleutian Islands between Russia and Alaska until December 5, and then reporting on military shipping to Hawaii between the fifth and the seventh. After the start of Japan’s East Asian conquest signaled by…[the call from Cpt. Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the Japanese Navy Air Service attack on Pearl Harbor] of To Ra To Ra To Ra, they were now to begin taking down American ships. Yokota’s first sighting by periscope of one of these targets was the Cynthia Olson, which the sub followed until the very moment of X-day’s zero hour, when I-26 – a hundred feet longer and four hundred pounds heavier than the ship, armed with six torpedo tubes, two 25 mm machine guns, and a 140 mm deck cannon – surfaced directly before the schooner, at about a thousand meters.

“Yokota fired eighteen rounds into Cynthia Olson from his deck gun, then submerged and launched a torpedo. It missed, so he resurfaced, to give her twenty-nine more shells from his gun. As Cynthia Olson began to sink, I-26 left to prowl America’s West Coast, looking for more prey.

“Cynthia Olson radioed Lurline, ‘All crew abandoning ship in lifeboats.’ The following day, Japanese submarine I-19 reported surfacing to give food to some of the ship’s survivors, and that report is the last we know of Cynthia Olson’s merchant marine crew of thirty-three and her two army privates, radio operator Samuel Zisking and medical technician Ernest Davenport. Those thirty-five bodies were never found.”

Newspaper

Feb 7, 1942: “Washington, Feb 7. – The War department last night disclosed that the United States army freighter Cynthia Olson has not been reported since December 8 and was presumed lost. On December 7 the freighter wired that it was under attack by a Japanese submarine. Its position at that time was about 1,200 miles west of Seattle. On board was a crew of 33 civilians and two sailors. The communique said all 35 were believed to have been lost.” (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, AK. “Army Air Force To Be 2,000,000.” 2-7-1942, p. 6, col. 1.) [Nothing is said in the article about the Army Air Force, thus the title looks like it was meant to go somewhere else.]

Sources

American Merchant Marine at War. Chronological List of U.S. Ships Sunk or Damaged 1939 to 1941. Accessed 5-1-2021 at: http://www.usmm.org/sunk39-41.html#anchor325668

Chen, C. Peter. World War II Database. “7 Dec 1941.” Accessed 5-1-2021 at: https://ww2db.com/event/today/12/07/1941

Clancey, Patrick (transcriber and formatter for HTML). HyperWar: The Official Chronology of the US Navy in World War II. “Chapter III: 1941.” Accessed 5-1-2021 at: https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/USN-Chron/USN-Chron-1941.html

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, AK. “Army Air Force To Be 2,000,000.” 2-7-1942, p. 6, col. 1. Accessed 5-1-2021 at: https://newspaperarchive.com/fairbanks-daily-news-miner-feb-07-1942-p-6/

Moore, Captain Arthur R. A Careless Word, A Needless Sinking: A History of the Staggering Losses Suffered By the U.S. Merchant Marine, Both in Ships and Personnel, During World War II. American Merchant Marine Museum 1983 (1st edition), 1990. Table extracted by armed-guard.com. Accessed 5-1-2021 at: https://www.armed-guard.com/sunk.html

Nelson, Craig. Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness. New York: Scribner, 2016. Accessed 5-1-2021 at: https://books.google.com/books?id=ECcuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA208#v=onepage&q&f=true