American Liberty Ship SS Stephen Hopkins. Last Stand of the SS Stephen Hopkins. Painting by John Alan Hamilton (1919–1993). (Imperial War Museum) On Sunday morning, 27 September 1942, the German raider Stier and blockade runner Tannenfels were awaiting a rendezvous with a tanker. Suddenly a ship emerged from a rain squall. She was an American Liberty ship, the Stephen Hopkins. However, the German vessels did not know her name. The captain of the ship, Paul Buck, thought them to be harmless freighters but upon close examination through his glasses, he spotted big guns on the lead ship and went to a General Alarm. The captain of the Stier, Franz Gerlach, considered her another defenseless target. The Stier (ex-merchant vessel Cairo, HSK 6, ship number Schiff 23 [for signal purposes], Raider J) was armed with six 5.9-inch guns, two 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, four 20-mm anti-aircraft guns, and two 21-inch torpedo tubes (submerged). She also carri...