The Mystery of the Joyita. Ship abandoned in the South Pacific.

My father claimed that he received a post card from Dusty about a year after the Joyita disappeared. There is a lot more to the story that I need to substantiate before I can come out and tell the world what actually happened.

Never heard the story before. Some called it the " Mary Celeste of the Pacific"



A CHRONOLOGY OF MYSTERIOUS HAPPENINGS IN HISTORY


The Event: The Abandonment of the Derelict Joyita


When: 1955


Where: Western Pacific


The Mystery: The 70-ton Joyita, a twin-screw motor vessel, left the port of Apia in Western Samoa for the Tokelau Islands, 270 mi. to the north, at dawn on Oct. 3, 1955. Thirty-seven days later it was found waterlogged and drifting 167 mi. from the Fiji Islands, 450 mi. west of Samoa. Of Capt. "Dusty" Miller, the passengers, and the crew--25 people in all--there was no trace. The vessel's provisions, the captain's logbook and instruments, and pound 1,000 that was to have been used to buy copra at Tokelau were missing. A doctor's scalpel, a stethoscope, and four lengths of blood-stained bandage were found lying in the scuppers. They had belonged to one of the passengers, Dr. A.D. Parsons. For some reason, the front of the bridge had been "roofed" with a canvas awning.

The fate of the Joyita's crew and passengers was a complete mystery--another Mary Celeste. It rated worldwide headlines--headlines that screamed accusations. The vessel had been rammed by a Japanese fishing vessel whose crew had looted it and then murdered all on board. Or it had encountered an insidious submarine of unknown nationality. Or it had been overwhelmed by a tidal wave. Or by a volcanic eruption. Or, more wildly, those aboard had been kidnapped and transported into space by extraterrestrial visitors.


One relatively prosaic theory suggested that the captain and mate had fought. The mate had fallen overboard and the badly injured captain had been patched up by Dr. Parsons. Threatened by a heavy storm and high seas, and unable to navigate the ship, the passengers and crew had taken to the life rafts, but not before they had rigged an awning above the wounded captain, who had refused to abandon his vessel. They had all perished at sea.


The Joyita had been built in 1931 at Los Angeles for a wealthy film director. It had been chartered by the U.S. Navy during W.W. II as a patrol vessel. "Dusty" Miller, a 36-year-old former Royal Naval officer, took it over in 1952 for trading between the islands. By 1955 he was in desperate financial straits and owed money to nearly everyone he knew. In that year he secured a contract, at pound 70 a day, to bring copra from Tokelau. Although not licensed to carry passengers on the fatal voyage, he had taken nine on board--three Europeans and six islanders. His mate was Amerind "Chuck" Simpson, who was known as "the Gorilla" due to his physique.


Possible Solutions: The Joyita was unseaworthy. Both engines were cranky and worked spasmodically. The radio did not work, owing to a broken lead. A 1-in. pipe in the port bilge had become corroded andduhed, sometimes to the point of flooding the hold. Miller knew his vessel's defects. He consoled himself by saying the night before the Joyita sailed: "Don't worry. It will be all right. Besides, if anything did happen to this boat, a man would be a fool to leave her, because she is unsinkable." He referred to the fact that the Joyita carried 640 cu.ft. of cork in its hold.


The Joyita's condition may account for its becoming waterlogged, but not for its being abandoned. It is surmised that, after the passengers and crew had left, the vessel was found by Japanese crewmen, who looted it and threw the body of the dead or dying captain overboard. The Joyita was finally wrecked on Nov. 20,1959.

[link to www.trivia-library.com]

I was on the Joyita several times as a child in American Samoa when it came into harbor. Dusty Miller used to come over to my father's house to play poker when he was in port. I left American Samoa in 1953 at the age of five. Dad stayed behind and continued to work as Chief of Dentistry for the US Department of Public Health setting up dental care for the islanders. Dad finally left in 1956 right after receiving the post card from Dusty. Dead men do not send postcards.

I guess you dont have the card?
Didnt he tell you where it was sent from?

Last Edited by Ostria on 03/19/2010 05:07 PM

Indeed, I do know where it was sent from. My stepmother may still have the card. Dad died over 20 years ago. My mother walked out on Dad in 1953 because she wanted to return to the Big City of Chicago. There were theaters in Chicago, and plays and symphonies. There was nothing like that in Samoa, where she could watch the natives do their ritual dances but not much more, so mom took the kids and went back to live with her father. She then divorced my father and he remarried to the Royal Title Bearer of the Samoan Islands, the Voliki, a princess named Talila. Technically, her oldest son has the right to claim to be the king of Samoa. By marriage I am her oldest son. I am pure European in DNA, so would never think of making that claim, but I do have a Samoan brother who might do so. Talila is getting on in her years so, by now may have lost the card.

On I love these stories! Have you visited her or your brother lately? Maybe its time. Go and see if you can find the card. People usually keep these for years.

Here, I will spill what I know. Dusty always used to come to Dad's house in Pago Pago and play poker until two or three in the morning. All the men who played poker were heavy drinkers. At the last poker party that Dusty attended, he shook my father's hand and said, "Ray, the next time you hear from me I am going to be a very very wealthy man living in South America.

The day before my father had given Dusty a bottle of medicine that could be used to knock out sailors when they were injured. (According to Dusty to make it possible to stitch them up when they were cut or to set a broken leg or...). There was more then enough to be able to prepare knock out drops for over thirty people.

Several months after the Joyita was found and everybody was assumed dead, Dad received a postcard from Argentina addressed to Dad as Ray. Dusty called him Ray. Everybody else called him Doc. The only comment on the card was a Big Question mark in the writing section. Dad knew who it was from.

Dad supposedly did some research and found out that Dusty's father (or father figure) was in an Australian jail for stealing close to half a million dollars worth of jewlery, gold and money. The stolen items were never found and nobody knew what happened to them.

It is this that I need to prove.

Dusty somehow retrieved the stolen goods, and killed off the crew and passengers with the knock out drops provided by my father. He then used the Joyita's boat to escape to the coast of Fiji where he had transportation that he used to make it to South America were he was a very very wealthy man.

I need to prove that the story of the gold and jewelry was correct.

He needed to make it look like he died or else when he moved to SA and suddenly had a lot of gold and jewelry to sell, the court that convicted his father would have perked up.

Ok this is difficult. Argentina recieved many people of all kinds those years after the war. It is very probable that he staged the whole incident (either killed the people or took them with him -the blood etc could be staged also). It is sure that he changed his name, so it will be difficult to find info on him after all these years.

Last Edited by Ostria on 03/19/2010 07:15 PM

hello,my name is Claire,i am the granddaughter of dusty miller,i never knew him only learned of him through my nanna ismay miller,which wasn't very much really,i do however have the book that was written about the joyita mystery written by robin maughan,but not sure how accerate this is,we are from Cardiff south wales,my thoughts to the whole mystery will always be a mystery to our family,

hello,my name is Claire,i am the granddaughter of dusty miller,i never knew him only learned of him through my nanna ismay miller,which wasn't very much really,i do however have the book that was written about the joyita mystery written by robin maughan,but not sure how accerate this is,we are from Cardiff south wales,my thoughts to the whole mystery will always be a mystery to our family,also,i can asure u my great grandfather was never in any prion,he worked his whole life in Cardiff docks,

[link to www.fijitimes.com]

Some people have also commented on the Joyita mystery on the website www.godlikeproductions.com but so far no one has been able to determine what happened to the crew and passengers onboard.

Like the stories of other ghost ships in the world, what happened to the Joyita remains a mystery to this very day and is still talked about in some circles.

Interesting...

I think some of Dusty's descendants may have returned to AS. and Samoa from Argentina.

Lil bit of a discrepancy here.


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Interesting that the cork and empty fuel drums made the ship unsinkable, even though it appears someone was attempting to scuttle it.


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