Just offshore from St. Lawrence, Newfoundland, overnight February 17-18, 1942. The only black sailor on the USS Truxton to survive the shipwreck is named Lanier Phillips (still alive, as far as I can tell). The following is a quote from an interview of him I found at military.com:

"We thought we were in Iceland, you see? The storm had blown us everywhere. We had no way of knowing where we were, so we thought we were in Iceland. And my friends said they'd probably lynch us if we went ashore. Negroes...that's what they called us back then...were not allowed to set foot in Iceland."
[ . . .]
Lanier had lost consciousness at the bottom of the cliffs. He woke to find himself lying on a table in an unfamiliar building, under the care of several white women. Other Sailors lay on nearby tables, also under the care of local women. The ladies were washing the Sailors with warm water, trying to pull them back from hypothermia, and also to wash the tar-like crude oil from their bodies.

Lanier quickly realized that he was naked. His mind flew into panic mode. He was a black man ashore in Iceland. That alone might be enough to get him lynched. To make matters worse, he was naked in the presence of white women, and they were touching his body. That had to be enough to get him killed.

The only thing hiding the color of his skin was the crude oil that coated his body. For the moment, every one of the rescued Sailors were black. But, when the oil was washed off, the rest of the survivors would be white. Lanier would still be black. And then things were going to get ugly.

One of his caretakers kept scrubbing the same spot over and over again. "This poor boy," she said. "The oil has gotten into his pores. It just won't come off."

Lanier decided that the sooner the truth came out, the less trouble he would be in. "Ma'am, that's not going to come off," he said. "That's the color of my skin."

He was greatly relieved to learn he was in Canada.

How did I know it was true? I remembered hearing the story on PRI's This American Life. Search for Episode 201 (12/7/01); the story is "Act Three" -- if I recall correctly, Mr. Phillips and one of the women rescuers are interviewed.