Built in Maine in 1943 the Liberty ship John A. Poor hit two or three mines on July 26, 1943, the damage was serious, but the ship was towed into port and repaired. She returned to service in November of the same year. Four months later on March 19, 1944 she again came to grief.

The ship was en route to Aden sailing alone (she had detached from her convoy on Mar. 18). At 1745 (GCT) she was hit on the starboard side by a torpedo fired by Oberleutnant zur See Alfred Eick from U-510. Seconds later a second torpedo exploded, two minutes after this the ship went under. Thirty-four men went with her.

Due to the rapid sinking there was no time for lifeboats to be launched or for a distress signal to be sent. Thankfully five rafts floated free from the ship as she went down, but two of them were too badly damaged to be of any use. Food and water from the two damaged rafts was collected and the thirty-nine survivors organized themselves on the remaining three rafts.

No assistance was offered by the U-boat as Eick did not surface. The men in the three rafts were on their own in the Indian Ocean about 300 miles west of the Indian coast. Having little control of the rafts they drifted with the current, directly away from India and toward the middle of the Indian Ocean, fortunately they were found and picked up at 0600 on Mar. 22 by SS Fort Walsh, all thirty-nine men were landed at Ceylon on the 26th.