In August of 1941 Bethlehem Steel of Staton Island, New York delivered the cargo ship Stella Lykes to the Lykes Brothers Steamship Company of New Orleans, Louisiana. This was the second so named ship owned by the company (the first was sold in early 1941 and renamed Josephine, under the name Leslie she was sunk Apr. 13, 1942 by U-123). Named for the wife of the co-founder and Vice-President of the company Howell T. Lykes (who died July 11, 1942) the name was given to no less than seven ships between 1926 and 1997.

In July of 1942 the new ship was sailing independently from Cape Town, South Africa to Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana (modern day Suriname) in ballast, the South Atlantic was thought to be far safer for shipping as U-boats appeared infrequently. However in June of that year Grossadmiral Dönitz decided to send a wolfpack to the South Atlantic to harass Allied shipping. Five U-boats left ports in France in late June and early July and headed south. They attacked a convoy (OS-33) and caused considerable losses among the ships.

Having moved further southwest U-582 sighted the unescorted Stella Lykes on July 27, 1942 about 700 miles west of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Kapitänleutnant Werner Schulte fired one torpedo which struck the starboard side of the ship killing one oiler and causing serious damage. The survivors reported a second explosion occurred about ten seconds later, but there is no evidence that it was a torpedo. Fires erupted, but went out within a few minutes, to the master and crew the evidence that their ship would founder was apparent. The starboard side of the ship was a shambles, the lifeboat was destroyed, the starboard bridge wing was wrecked, the gyro room blown in and a large hole open to the sea near #4 hatch. The engines had stopped and inter-ship communications had been disabled. An SOS was sent using an auxiliary radio, but survivors stated that no response was ever received.

The master and the fifty-one other survivors, including the Armed Guard, abandoned the ship about fifteen minutes after the torpedo attack using one lifeboat and three rafts. Having moved around the stricken ship Schulte fired a second torpedo striking the ship on the port side. As the survivors watched U-582 came to the surface and began shelling the Stella Lykes hitting her several times, but still she remained afloat.

Schulte moved toward the survivors and ordered them to come alongside the boat, he took the Master, S. Charles Wallace and the Chief Engineer, Walter R. Morrison prisoner and offered medical supplies and cigarettes to the other survivors. They were also given a course and estimated distance to the nearest land. Schulte sent men aboard the Stella Lykes to set charges, which finally sent the ship to the bottom a few hours after the original attack. U-528 then submerged and departed the area leaving fifty men in mid-ocean.

All the survivors crowded into the lifeboat and headed for the African coast which was over 700 miles away. Apparently deciding not to make for the Cape Verde Islands, which were just over 500 miles away. All fifty men survived the voyage and landed at Cacheu, Portuguese Guinea (modern day Guinea-Bissau) on Aug. 5.

Stella Lykes was the last ship sunk by Schulte on this patrol, U-582 and the two prisoners returned to France arriving on Apr. 11. Four days later Berlin announced via radio that Wallace and Morrison were prisoners. They were interned at the Milag Nord PoW camp near Bremen, Germany. Wallace remained there until the end of the war, but Morrison was released in 1944 due to ill health.

On his next war patrol Schulte and U-582 sank one other ship, a Norwegian freighter named Vibran. A couple of weeks after that U-582 rested on the bottom herself, and like the Vibran, her entire crew rests with her.