U-576, a Kriegsmarine Type VIIC-class submarine, carried 45 men and 14 torpedoes within its 220-foot length. She displaced 871 tons submerged.

Though U-576 could steam some 8,500 nautical miles from occupied France to the American West Coast, the distance severely stretched man and machine. The Type VII subs Germany sent to North American shores carried diesel fuel, steamed on a single engine and crammed provisions into every available interior space.

Not much larger than the sub that sunk her, Bluefields was a typical working freighter of the era.

Built in a Wisconsin shipyard in 1917, she carried war material during World War I. Later, she passed through a variety of corporate hands during the 1920s and 1930s, hauling bulk cargo on the Great Lakes. By the summer of 1942, Bluefields acquired a Nicaraguan home port.

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