JOYITA
Found 10 November 1955. MV Joyita drifting empty. Twenty-five missing. Radio on 2182, aerial broken, boats gone. Hull too buoyant to sink.
179°00'00 E
1. Public Record
3 October 1955. The merchant vessel MV Joyita left Apia for the Tokelau Islands with twenty-five people aboard. On 10 November she was found listing and empty north of Vanua Levu, hundreds of miles off her route. The radio was tuned to 2182, the distress frequency, and the aerial had broken. The clocks had stopped. A doctor's bag was on deck. A bloodstained bandage. The dinghies and the inflatable were gone. The cargo of copra was mostly still there. A pipe in the engine room had failed in a way that let water in slowly, and the pumps that should have saved her had been fouled.
Search parties found no boats and no bodies the inquiry could bury. The ship herself was too buoyant to sink. That is why she was found. The people were not.
The vessel was found abandoned.
2. Date of Incident
Left Apia 3 October 1955. Found drifting 10 November. Inquiry 1956. No one from the complement recovered.
3. Location
Found in waters north of Vanua Levu. Approximate 16°00 S 179°00 E. Intended route Samoa to Tokelau.
4. Official Narrative
Inquiry: the ship took water through a broken pipe, the pumps were useless, the complement left in the boats and was lost at sea. Official narrative is a leak and a bad decision, not a named act of piracy. No bodies to prove the boats.
5. Witness Layer
The finders of the hulk. No living passenger. Captain Miller had a reputation for carrying extra fuel in drums on deck. That fact fed later stories and does not, by itself, put twenty-five people in the water.
The dinghies were gone.
6. Recovery Logistics
The ship, later repaired and used again. No boats with names on them. No graves the inquiry could point to.
7. Assessment
A Pacific empty-ship file with a hull you can still describe. That is the difference from the Ourang Medan page. Joyita existed. She leaked. The people left, or were taken, and the sea kept them. Piracy, panic, and a slow flood all fit because the boats never came home. Keep the broken aerial on 2182. Someone tried the right frequency.
8. Materials & Remains
The vessel. Inquiry paper. No recovered complement.
9. Key Personnel
Capt. Thomas Henry Dusty Miller : Master. Missing with the rest.
Twenty-five complement : Crew and passengers. None recovered.
Inquiry board : Leak and abandonment.
10. Aftermath
Joyita sailed again under other owners. The 1955 complement did not. Pacific empty-ship lists keep her next to the Deering, where she belongs more than the Medan does.
11. Current Archive Status
Status: Merchant vessel found abandoned, November 1955. Complement of 25 missing. Inquiry: leak and boats. No bodies recovered.
Confidence: High that Joyita left Apia with 25 people and was found empty and flooded weeks later. High that boats and radio aerial were in the state the boarders described. Low that a named crime has been proved. Low that the boats will now be found.
Filing note
Apia to Tokelau, a leak, pumps that would not, a radio on the distress frequency with a broken aerial, boats gone, twenty-five people gone, copra still in the hold. She was built not to sink. That is why she was found.
The radio was already on 2182. Not a ghost story. Someone had chosen the right channel before the aerial went. That small correct setting makes the missing boats colder than any later rumour about drums of fuel on the deck.