SS Kentuckian

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USS Kentuckian redirects here. For other ships with a similar name, see USS Kentucky.

SS Kentuckian, c. 1917–18
SS Kentuckian, c. 1917–18
History
NameSS Kentuckian
OwnerAmerican-Hawaiian Steamship Company
OrderedSecond quarter, 1909[4]
Builder
Cost$579,000[5]
Yard number104[2]
Launched19 March 1910[3]
Sponsored byMiss Nancy Johnson[3]
Completed1 June 1910[2]
IdentificationOfficial number:207489[1]
FateChartered to U.S. Army
History
United States
NameUSAT Kentuckian
AcquiredBefore March 1918
FateAcquired by U.S. Navy, December 1918
History
United States
NameUSS Kentuckian (ID-1544)
Acquired16 December 1918[6]
Commissioned28 January 1919[6]
Decommissioned15 September 1919[6]
FateReturned to American-Hawaiian
History
NameSS Kentuckian
OwnerAmerican-Hawaiian Steamship Company
Acquiredreturned from U.S. Navy, 15 September 1919
Honors and
awards		1
battle star
, Convoy HX-233, 16–18 April 1942
FateSunk as a breakwater off Normandy, 12 August 1944[1]
General characteristics
TypeCargo ship
Tonnage6,479 GRT[5] 9,925 LT DWT[5]
Displacement14,405 t[7]
Length
Beam53 ft 6 in (16.31 m)[9]
Propulsion
Speed12 knots (22 km/h)[1]
CapacityCargo: 428,145 cubic feet (12,123.7 m3)[5]
General characteristics (as USAT Kentuckian)
TypeCargo ship
Armament
gun mount
General characteristics (as USS Kentuckian)
Typetroop transport
Troops1,900

SS Kentuckian was a cargo ship built in 1910 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I she was known as USAT Kentuckian in service for the United States Army and USS Kentuckian (ID-1544) in service for the United States Navy. After her Navy career, she reverted to her original name of SS Kentuckian.

She was built by the

Armistice, USS Kentuckian was converted to a troop transport
and returned almost 8,900 American troops from France. Returned to American-Hawaiian in 1919, Kentuckian resumed inter-coastal cargo service.

Shortly before

Normandy Invasion
.

Design and construction

In the second quarter of 1909, American-Hawaiian, looking to expand its fleet, placed an order with the

cargo ships—Kentuckian, Georgian, and Honolulan. The contract for the ships required that American-Hawaiian pay $1,000,000 in cash and a further $650,000 in twelve monthly notes at 5% interest. Provisions of the deal allowed that the monthly notes could be converted into longer-term mortgages at 6% interest, and secured by the ships themselves.[Note 1] The final cost of Kentuckian, including financing costs, was $58.33 per deadweight ton, which came out to just under $579,000.[4]

Kentuckian (Maryland Steel yard no. 104)

screw propeller at a speed of 11 knots (20 km/h).[1][8]

Early career

When Kentuckian began sailing for American-Hawaiian, the company shipped cargo from

Tehuantepec National Railway.[10] Eastbound shipments were primarily sugar and pineapple from Hawaii, while westbound cargoes were more general in nature.[11] Kentuckian sailed in this service but it is not clear from sources whether on the east or west side of North America.[12]

5"/51 caliber (127 mm) gun. Naval gunners on Kentuckian claimed a hit on a running German torpedo
in April 1918.

After the

Straits of Magellan.[13] With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to taking that route.[13]

In October 1915, landslides closed the Panama Canal and all American-Hawaiian ships, including Kentuckian, returned to the Straits of Magellan route again.

chartered for transatlantic service. She may also have been in the group of American-Hawaiian ships chartered for service to South America, delivering coal, gasoline, and steel in exchange for coffee, nitrates, cocoa, rubber, and manganese ore.[15]

World War I

At some point after the United States declared war on

American Expeditionary Force.[16][17] Although there is no information about the specific conversion of Kentuckian, for other ships this typically meant that any passenger accommodations had to be ripped out and replaced with ramps and stalls for the horses and mules carried.[18]

Details about Kentuckian's first animal transport journey are not known, but her second trip began 14 March 1918 when she sailed from

Naval Armed Guardsmen on Kentuckian sighted a torpedo heading towards the second ship behind her in the column. Opening fire on the torpedo, the gun crew claimed the hit that caused the torpedo to explode short of its intended target.[16]
Further details of Kentuckian's Army service are not available.

With the signing of the

Armistice on 11 November, the fighting came to an end and the task of bringing home American soldiers began almost immediately.[19] To that end, Kentuckian was acquired by the United States Navy on 16 December, and commissioned on 28 January 1919, .[6] Before she could begin returning troops, though, Kentuckian had to undergo conversion from a cargo and animal ship. Though sources do not indicate the specific modifications Kentuckian underwent, typical conversions for other ships included the installation of berths for troops, and adding greatly expanded cooking and toilet facilities to handle the large numbers of men aboard.[20] Similar modifications on a fellow American-Hawaiian cargo ship, the two-years-younger Minnesotan, took three months,[21]
but it is not known how long Kentuckian's refit took.

USS Kentuckian returns American troops in 1919.

Kentuckian departed New York for her first trooping voyage on 2 March, picking up nearly 2,000 soldiers at Saint-Nazaire—among them some 1,500 men of the 363rd Infantry Regiment of the

Crown Prince Wilhelm.[23] Another trip in July returned another 1,852 men from Saint-Nazaire.[25] In all, Kentuckian made a total of five trooping runs from France, bringing back 8,895 men by the time she completed her last trip on 31 August at Norfolk, Virginia.[7] She was decommissioned on 15 September and returned to American-Hawaiian the same day.[6]

Interwar years

Kentuckian resumed cargo service with American-Hawaiian after her return from World War I service. Though the company had abandoned its original Hawaiian sugar routes by this time,

port bilge keel and returned to San Francisco for repairs.[27] In early April 1933, a fire broke out in Kentuckian's number two cargo hold, which resulted in the delay of the ship at Panama from 8 to 14 April. Kentuckian made her way to Los Angeles over the next ten days, where surveyors examined the ship and her general cargo.[28]

For the most part, Kentuckian primarily carried general cargoes whose contents were not noteworthy.[29] One exception occurred in July 1929, when The New York Times reported that Kentuckian was carrying, Pirate, an R-class racing yacht to races at Larchmont and Marblehead. The newspaper reported that Pirate was the first West Coast designed and built yacht to race in the East.[30]

SS Kentuckian sailed in eleven transatlantic convoys, like this typical one, seen in 1942.

Unlike SS Minnesotan, a fellow American-Hawaiian ship that was plagued with labor difficulties,[31] Kentuckian seems to have escaped much of the maritime labor turmoil of the mid-1930s. One incident was reported by the Los Angeles Times in August 1936. The news item reported that a portion of Kentuckian's crew went on strike in protest against unsafe working conditions. The ship's master had ordered the deckhands to rig one of the cargo booms after the ship docked in Los Angeles, but they refused because the deck was slippery and therefore, in their opinion, unsafe.[32][Note 3]

World War II

Shortly before the United States entered

Key West, Florida convoy. She left the convoy before Key West and headed back across the Atlantic to Cape Town, where she arrived on 7 July. Kentuckian spent the next month sailing between Cape Town, East London, and Durban. Kentuckian concluded her second trip to Africa when she sailed for South America on 1 August.[34]

After a three-week crossing of the South Atlantic, Kentuckian arrived at

Bathurst and Takoradi over the next two months before returning to Trinidad on 31 January 1943. Sailing from Trinidad on 4 February, she called at Guantánamo Bay and Baltimore on her way to New York, where, arriving in late March, she prepared to begin transatlantic convoy sailings to the United Kingdom.[34]

On 1 April, Kentuckian, loaded with grain and general cargo, departed as a part of Convoy HX-232, the 232nd New York –

battle star for actions in the convoy from 16 to 18 April.[40][Note 4] Kentuckian arrived at Liverpool on 21 April. Over the next ten months, Kentuckian made nine more convoy crossings between the UK—where she called at Liverpool, Swansea, Milford Haven, Methil, Loch Ewe, Immingham, and Belfast Lough—and New York. She ended her tenth North Atlantic crossing when she arrived at New York on 16 February 1944.[34]

Five of the remaining caissons from the Mulberry Harbor at Arromanches-les-Bains as seen in May 2005. SS Kentuckian was scuttled as part of the breakwater to protect the harbor.

Sailing from New York on 26 February, Kentuckian made two circuits between that port and the Caribbean, calling at

Normandy invasion.[6][41]

In March 1945, the WSA offered a payment of $565,910 to American-Hawaiian for Kentuckian as part of a $7.2 million settlement for eleven requisitioned American-Hawaiian ships that had either been sunk, scuttled (like Kentuckian), or were to be retained by the government.[33]

Notes

  1. ^ American-Hawaiian was so pleased by the arrangements with Maryland Steel, and by the ships themselves, that they gave Maryland Steel the monopoly for all future construction, a further eleven ships by 1914. See: Cochran and Ginger, pp. 358, 365.
  2. William Edgar Borah (R-ID) and the wives of Representative Joseph F. Howell (D-UT) and former senator Thomas H. Paynter
    (D-KY) were among the invited guests at the noon launching ceremony. All had taken a special train from Washington, D.C. at 10:00 that morning.
  3. ^ There was no follow up report indicating the ultimate resolution of the incident.
  4. battle star
    , even though the Armed Guard contingents on some of the ships were unaware that a submarine had been sighted, much less sunk. Merchant seamen on the vessels received no such award. See: Haskell, pp. 40–41.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Kentuckian (2207489)". Miramar Ship Index. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d Colton, Tim. "Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point MD". Shipbuildinghistory.com. The Colton Company. Archived from the original on 8 October 2008. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
  3. ^ a b c "Water to christen ship". The Washington Post. 20 March 1910. p. 15.
  4. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 358.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Cochran and Ginger, p. 365.
  6. ^
    Naval Historical Center. "Kentuckian". DANFS
    .
  7. ^ a b Gleaves, pp. 256–57.
  8. ^ a b c Cochran and Ginger, p. 357.
  9. ^ a b c d "Launch liner Kentuckian". The New York Times. 20 March 1910. p. 7.
  10. ^ Hovey, p. 78.
  11. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 355–56.
  12. ^ "American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. (display ad)". Los Angeles Times. 13 April 1914. p. I–4.
  13. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 360.
  14. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 361.
  15. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 362.
  16. ^ a b Crowell and Wilson, p. 529.
  17. ^ a b Krenzelok, Greg. "Newport News Animal Transport ship List overseas to France during WW1". Retrieved 29 August 2008.
  18. ^ Crowell and Wilson, pp. 313–14.
  19. ^ Gleaves, p. 31.
  20. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 316.
  21. Naval Historical Center. "Minnesotan". DANFS
    .
  22. ^ 363rd Infantry, 91st Infantry Division: "California unit back". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 2 April 1919. p. I–1. 33rd Infantry Division: "Chicago marines and doughboys land in U. S. A". Chicago Daily Tribune. 5 April 1919. p. 3.
  23. ^ a b "Crown prince's dog here". The New York Times. 8 June 1919. p. 7.
  24. ^ "The friend of the soldier". Chicago Daily Tribune. 6 June 1919. p. 8.
  25. ^ "1,300 troops back in six transports". The Washington Post. 8 July 1919. p. 5.
  26. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 363
  27. ^ "Rammed ship due at harbor". Los Angeles Times. 23 September 1928. p. F7.
  28. ^ Drake, Waldo (25 April 1933). "Shipping news and activities at Los Angeles Harbor". Los Angeles Times. p. 11.
  29. ^ Arrival notices in the Los Angeles Times, for example, generally only noted the quantity of cargo carried by Kentuckian. For a typical report, see: Cave, Wayne B. (5 July 1933). "Shipping news and activities at Los Angeles Harbor". Los Angeles Times. p. 15. the Kentuckian, from Boston, with 2000 tons of general [cargo]
  30. ^ "Coast craft to race in East". The New York Times. 7 July 1929. p. 131.
  31. ^ See: Drake, Waldo (8 March 1935). "Shipping news". Los Angeles Times. p. 9. "Crews return to last three tied-up ships". Los Angeles Times. 27 October 1935. p. 1. "Ship crew fingerprinted in hunt for knife-killer". Los Angeles Times. 24 March 1936. p. 9.
  32. ^ "Seaman Strike Continues to Tie Up Vessel". Los Angeles Times. 14 August 1936. p. 11.
  33. ^ a b Stone, Leon (31 March 1945). "U.S. awards $7,247,637 to Hawaiian ship firm". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 4.
  34. ^ a b c d "Port Arrivals/Departures: Kentuckian". Arnold Hague's Ports Database. Convoy Web. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
  35. ^ "Convoy TAG.3". Arnold Hague Convoy Database. ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
  36. ^ "Convoy HX.232". Arnold Hague Convoy Database. ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
  37. ^ Haskell, p. 90.
  38. ^ Haskell, p. 92.
  39. ^ Haskell, pp. 93–102.
  40. ^ Haskell, p. 40.
  41. ^ "Convoy EBC.35". Arnold Hague Convoy Database. ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 29 August 2008.

Bibliography

External links

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