WW2 U-Boat Victim Fallen - Erin Kay, SS San Blas

Seaman 2/c Erin Kay served on the cargo steamer SS San Blas until it was sunk by a German U-boat.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71496202/erin-epting-kay
https://arqueologiasubacuatica.org/tag/ss-san-blas/
https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?15860 

Erin Epting Kay never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database. We are going to need a lot of volunteers. Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

Erin was born on May 29, 1920 in South Carolina. His parents Marion and Macy were also both born in South Carolina. His father worked as a farmer. Erin had two younger brothers. By 1940 Erin had completed seven years of schooling and was working on the family farm.

He volunteered for the Navy on December 23, 1941. He became a seamen second class and was assigned to serve on the Panamanian cargo steamer SS San Blas. San Blas steamed from Galveston bound for Guatemala. It travelled without any escort. In the pre-dawn hours of June 17, 1942, German U-boat 158 fired two torpedoes at San Blas. The first one missed but the second one hit the port quarter. Out of 44 men on board, 29 (including Seaman Kay) were lost. The others survived on rafts for 12 days until they were rescued by a US Navy Catalina flying boat.

His cenotaph grave is at Forest Lawn Memorial Cemetery in Anderson, South Carolina. 

Thank you Seaman Kay for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Erin.

This is one of the final 100 stories (97) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75 anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.

Last year on this date I profiled James Crowley, 1st Infantry Division. You can read about James here.

On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!

I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org