The Robert J Walker, a US steel "Liberty" ship, was torpedoed some forty miles off the coast, approximately 60 miles south of Jervis Bay. The incident occurred in the early morning of Christmas Day (25 December), 1944. On a voyage from Fremantle to Sydney, two torpedoes, fired 3.5 hours apart, struck the vessel, a third stopped by anti-aircraft fire from the ship. Captain MacRae sent an urgent SOS message which resulted in numerous warships being sent to the scene from Sydney and Jervis Bay, with aircraft from the Rathmines base near Lake Macquarie.
By 6.30 p.m. that day, the first vessel arrived and found the ship abandoned with the stern awash to the bridge.
67 crew were located by 5.45 a.m. on 26th December (Boxing Day), and taken aboard HMAS Quickmatch, two having lost their lives. Robert J. Walker had sunk at 3a.m. that day, allegedly off the coast east of Bermagui, after drifting south.
The United States War Shipping Administration owned the 7180-ton steel screw steamer, built by the S.B. Corporation in Portland, Oregon, USA, in 1943. The vessel had a length of 128.8 metres and a beam of 17.3 metres and was powered by a triple expansion engine (Registration number 32143).
The incident reveals a rare chapter in the wartime history of NSW, with the Robert J. Walker being the sole NSW victim of the lone German U-boat, U-862, patrolling around Australia. Under command of Korvettenkapitan Heinrich Timm, U-862 was a Type IXD2 U-boat operating out of Jakarta. With a total of seven credited victories, the U-boat was gifted to the Japanese government and became I-502 and scuttled off Singapore in August 1945.
