At 10.40 hours on 19 May 1942 the unescorted and unarmed Isabela (Master Reginald J. Dexter) was torpedoed by U-751 35 miles south of Navassa Island Light. One torpedo struck on the starboard side at a coal bunker at the waterline slightly abaft the bridge. The explosion caused extensive damage, immediately stopped the vessel and killed two firemen and a coal passer on watch below. All partial bulkheads on the main deck and above broke and jarred the galley range off its foundation, causing it to fall through the tremendous hole in the various decks at least to the bottom of the ship and perhaps right through the bottom. The U-boat then surfaced and began shelling the ship off the port side from about 350 yards. Four shots were fired before the surviving eight officers and 26 crewmen abandoned ship in two lifeboats and three rafts and three shots after it. The ship finally sank over the bow with a port side list at 10.58 hours. The men on the rafts later transferred to the boats the next morning and they rowed to Cape Briton, Haiti. One lifeboat made landfall in 18 hours and the other in 30 hours.