She had been the pride of the Norwegian America Line: 171 metres of welded steel, four diesels, five decks, and accommodation for 860 passengers on the Oslo to New York run. On 21 January 1941 she became one more iron skeleton in the cold mud of the North Sea, fifteen metres beneath the surface off the mouth of the Tyne. The mine that holed her had been laid by a German aircraft - probably a Heinkel out of occupied Norway. She had been built in Bremen by Germans. The war pulled both ends of her short life together into something that reads less like history than tragedy.
The keel went down on 15 May 1936 at the Bremer Schiffswerft AG Weser yard. She launched on 29 December 1937, fitted out through the winter, and entered service in May 1938. Her measurements were generous: 171.75 metres long, 22.37 metres in the beam, five decks high, 18,673 gross register tons. Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg supplied four seven-cylinder diesel engines driving twin propellers - a modern motorship rather than a steamer, quieter and less hungry for fuel. She carried 152 passengers in cabin class, 307 in tourist, 401 in third, with 310 crew to look after them. The Norwegian America Line had been founded in 1910 to give Norway its own transatlantic service. By 1938 the Oslofjord was its flagship on the Oslo - Kristiansand - Stavanger - Bergen - New York route.
On 27 April 1939, in heavy weather off the Ambrose Lightship at the approach to New York harbour, the Oslofjord ran down the American pilot boat Sandy Hook. The pilot vessel was 160 feet long - large by the standards of its trade, vanishingly small against a 562-foot liner. Sandy Hook sank in 100 feet of water. All 26 crew and harbour pilots were rescued by the Oslofjord, which suffered only superficial damage and continued its crossing. The incident would have been a footnote in maritime court reports. Eighteen months later it became the answer to a different question - what was the Oslofjord doing in 1939? She was alive. She was crossing the Atlantic. She was rescuing Americans from cold water.
On 1 December 1940 the ship struck a German mine in the North Sea off the coast of England, near the mouth of the River Tyne. Tow attempts began immediately - the ship was holed but afloat, and salvage was thought possible. For seven weeks she hung on. On the night of 21-22 January 1941 the structure finally gave way, and the Oslofjord settled to the bottom in fifteen metres of water near the mouth of the Wear. She had been three years and eight months in commission. Her wreck still lies there, broken into pieces by half a century of North Sea storms, occasionally dived by sport divers when conditions allow. Her bell hangs in a Norwegian maritime museum. Her name was given to a successor liner in 1949 - the second MS Oslofjord, which sailed the same route until 1969.
There is something particular about ships lost so close to shore. The Oslofjord did not sink in a great battle or in mid-ocean storm. She struck a weapon laid by aircraft from her own builder's country, a few miles from a coastline she had no business crossing, in a war that turned every neutral sea lane into a killing ground. Her passenger berths had been removed when the Norwegian government in exile requisitioned her for trooping; she was carrying war materials, not holidaymakers. The mud off the Wear contains many such histories. The Oslofjord is among the largest of them, and one of the few you can still touch.
The wreck lies at approximately 55.003 degrees north, 1.395 degrees west, about one nautical mile off the coast between the mouths of the Tyne and the Wear, in roughly 15 metres of water. From 1,000 to 2,000 feet AGL in clear conditions divers' boats may be visible above the site. The wreck itself is below diveable depth for casual sport divers but is sometimes worked by technical teams. Nearest major airport is Newcastle International (EGNT), 11 nautical miles west-northwest. Durham Tees Valley (EGNV) lies 24 nautical miles south. The North Sea here is notorious for fog - check visibility before approaching the coast.