From the Flap
Shortly
before Christmas, 1969, the Merchant Marine vessel SS Badger State weighed
anchor near Seattle and departed for Da nang, Vietnam. Onboard was
a dangerous cargo of bombs being sent to support American troops
fighting overseas. But what began as an unremarkable voyage soon
went drastically – and
terrifyingly – off
course. Within days, the Badger State sank, dooming twenty-six of
its forty men to a watery grave-- and leaving everyone connected
with the ship with the haunting question: What really caused the
deadliest sea disaster of the Vietnam War?
William R. Benedetto began researching that question while serving in the Coast Guard’s Marine Investigation Unit. The assignment developed into a highly personal mission, as he spent years piecing together a full-scale account of this unique maritime event. The result of his work is Sailing into the Abyss, a riveting epic of a seafaring misadventure – the first book ever written on the sinking of the SS Badger State.
Using eyewitness accounts, official documents, and rarely seen photos, Sailing into the Abyss presents a minute-by-minute narrative, as viewed through the eyes of the ship’s few survivors. Among them is Captain Charles Wilson, who shares his painful memories of the voyage and the difficult decisions he had to make in confronting a series of catastrophic events. Well into their voyage, Wilson and his crew discovered that the weather report calling for clear skies was wrong—dead wrong. When two colossal storms converged on their vessel, the bombs began to come loose in their cargo holds. A mighty wall of water rolled the Badger State fifty-two degrees to port. And then the unthinkable happened—an explosion rocked the ship, blasting a hole through its hull and forcing Wilson to sound the abandon ship signal. To add to the crew’s danger, another bomb sank their fragile lifeboat. On their own amid the punishing waves, the men were defenseless when huge, normally harmless albatrosses inexplicably turned vicious and attacked them as they floated helplessly in the freezing waters of the North Pacific.
The sinking of the Badger State was one of the most shocking episodes in recent American history, and yet it has not been examined in full… until now. Richly detailed and featuring compassionate portrayals of compelling, real-life characters, Sailing into the Abyss finally gives much-deserved recognition to the heroism of those who survived the tragedy—and those who did not. It is a fascinating look at the human drama behind a military catastrophe, celebrating the triumph of the spirit in the face of adversity.