Navio do Pecém

The Navio do Pecém is a British steam cargo ship built in 1929 in Scotland, of the Baron Line series, which was carrying 4,630 t of coal and coke from England to Recife, on the Barry–Milford Haven–Pernambuco route. On 3 January 1943, off Pecém, it was hit without warning by a torpedo from the German submarine U-507. Records differ between 43 and 44 people on board and between six and seven dead; the 37 survivors abandoned the ship in lifeboats, and 28 crew members and 8 gunners landed in Fortaleza.

The captain was taken prisoner aboard U-507, which on 13 January 1943 was sunk by bombs from an American Catalina aircraft; its 54 crew members and the four prisoners died. Before that, the same submarine had sunk five Brazilian ships within a few days, an episode that hastened Brazil's entry into the Second World War.

The stern defensive gun is still on the wreck, hanging over the side and pointing at the seabed. In early 2020, divers found sun coral (Tubastraea tagusensis), an invasive coral from the Indo-Pacific, on the ship, where it did not appear in photos of the site from 2018 and 2019.