SS Panaman

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Baltimore, Maryland
History
NameSS Panaman
OwnerAmerican-Hawaiian Steamship Company
OrderedSeptember 1911[3]
Builder
Cost$715,000[4]
Yard number128[2]
Launched28 June 1913
CompletedSeptember 1913[2]
IdentificationOfficial number: 211629[1]
Fate
Chartered
by U.S. Army
History
United States
NameUSAT Panaman
FateTransferred to U.S. Navy, 12 August 1918[5]
History
United States
NameUSS Panaman (ID-3299)
Acquired12 August 1918
Commissioned12 August 1918
Decommissioned18 September 1919
FateReturned to American-Hawaiian
History
Name
  • 1919–1947: SS Panaman
  • 1947–1954: SS Marcella
Owner
  • 1919–1947: American-Hawaiian Steamship Co.
  • 1947–1954: Italian government[5]
Port of registry
  • 1919–1949: United States United States
  • 1949–1952: Italy Italy
FateScrapped at Baltimore, 15 September 1954[1]
General characteristics
TypeCargo ship
Tonnage6,535 GRT[4] 10,175 LT DWT[4]
Length
Beam53 ft 8 in (16.36 m)[5]
Draft29 ft 6 in (8.99 m)[5]
Installed power4,000 ihp (2,983 kW)
Propulsion
Speed12 knots (22 km/h)[5]
CapacityCargo: 492,255 cubic feet (13,939.1 m3)[4]
Crew18 officers, 40 crewmen
NotesSister ships: Dakotan, Montanan, Pennsylvanian, Minnesotan, Washingtonian, Iowan, Ohioan[2]
General characteristics (as USS Panaman)
Displacement14,495 t[8]
Complement70[5]
Armament
  • 1 × 5-inch (130 mm) gun
  • 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) gun[5]

SS Panaman was a cargo ship built in 1913 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. The ship was sometimes incorrectly referred to as SS Panamanian. During World War I she was known as USAT Panaman in service for the United States Army and USS Panaman (ID-3299) in service for the United States Navy. Late in her career she was known as SS Marcella for the Italian government.

She was built by the

Armistice, was converted to a troop transport
and returned over 11,000 American troops from France. Returned to American-Hawaiian in 1919, Panaman resumed inter-coastal cargo service.

During World War II, Panaman was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and initially sailed between New York and Caribbean ports, but with two trips to African ports mixed in. Beginning in mid 1943, Panaman sailed from New York or Boston to ports in the United Kingdom. In late 1946, she was sailing in the Pacific Ocean. In July 1947, American-Hawaiian sold Panaman to the Italian government. Renamed Marcella at that time, she was scrapped in September 1954 at Baltimore.

Design and construction

In November 1911, the

cargo ships—Panaman and Washingtonian.[Note 1] The contract cost of the ships was set at the construction cost plus an 8% profit for Maryland Steel, but with a maximum cost of $640,000 each. The construction was financed by Maryland Steel with a credit plan that called for a 5% down payment in cash with nine monthly installments for the balance. Provisions of the deal allowed that some of the nine installments could be converted into longer-term notes or mortgages. The final cost of Panaman, including financing costs, was $70.29 per deadweight ton, which came out to just over $715,000.[3]

Panaman (Maryland Steel yard no. 128)

screw propeller at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h).[1][6]

Early career

When Panaman 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] Panaman sailed in this service on the west side of North America.[12][13]

After the

Straits of Magellan.[14] With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to taking that route.[14]

Workers fill sugar sacks in Hawaii in the 1910s. Panaman was built for American-Hawaiian, in part, for the Hawaiian sugar trade.

In October 1915, landslides closed the Panama Canal and all American-Hawaiian ships, including Panaman, 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.[16]

World War I

At some point after the United States declared war on

American Expeditionary Force.[17] Although there is no information about the specific conversion of Panaman, for other ships this typically meant that passenger accommodations had to be ripped out and replaced with ramps and stalls for the horses and mules carried.[18] Details about Panaman's first two animal transport journeys are not known, but her third trip began 1 April 1918 when she sailed from Newport News, Virginia, with 180 animals for Saint-Nazaire. All 180 animals arrived in good health; none had died, fallen ill, or been injured during the trip.[17]
Further details of Panaman's Army service are not known.

On 12 August, Panaman was transferred to the

Armistice. After sailing from France on 16 November, she arrived at Newport News eleven days later and underwent repairs.[5]

American Expeditionary Force, like these seen here with a U.S. field artillery unit at Château-Thierry
.

Panaman sailed on 8 December for New York, where the Board of Survey found her fit for conversion to a

Minnesotan took three months,[21] but it is not known how long Panaman's refit took. After her conversion, she made six roundtrip voyages to France and brought home 11,393 American personnel.[8] USS Panaman was decommissioned on 18 September 1919, and returned to American-Hawaiian the same day.[5]

Interwar years

Panaman 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,

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce that went into great detail listing the contents of the 2,651,042-pound (1,202,492 kg) cargo that Panaman had unloaded. The items included items such as 90,372 pounds (40,992 kg) of iron conduit pipe, 73,486 pounds (33,333 kg) of paper towels and toilet tissue, and 40,873 pounds (18,540 kg) of canned hominy.[23] In June 1926, the newspaper ran a photograph that showed the loading of a $1,000 prize bull that was beginning its journey from Los Angeles Harbor to Guatemala City aboard Panaman.[24]

In 1940, Panaman made the news when eleven crewmen

Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation.[26] After interviewing the captain behind closed doors aboard the ship, the FBI turned the investigation over to the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation, whose two investigators conducted a hearing for the eleven men.[27]

World War II

SS Panaman sailed in several transatlantic convoys, like this typical one, seen in 1942.

After the United States entered

Key West, Hampton Roads, and Guantánamo Bay. One exception to this pattern was in November 1942 when Panaman sailed on one roundtrip to Durban, South Africa, returning by way of Bahia.[28]

In late April 1943, Panaman sailed from Hampton Roads to

Seine Bay in June, and Southampton and Belfast Lough again in July. In October, Panaman sailed from New York to Guantánamo Bay.[28]
According to personal letters sent from the Philippines by a crewman to family members, "Panaman" served in the Pacific Theater in the summer of 1945.

Later career

After the war's end, American-Hawaiian continued operating Panaman for about two more years. In December 1946, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported that Panaman was speeding to Manila with two men ill with polio. The news article reported that the ship had one man die in Saigon from the disease two months prior.[29] In July the following year, the company sold the Panaman to the Italian government.[30] The ship operated under her new name of Marcella and remained in Italian hands until she was scrapped on 15 September 1954 at Baltimore.[1]

Notes

  1. Maryland Steel had built three ships—Kentuckian, Georgian, and Honolulan—for American-Hawaiian in 1909 in what proved to be a satisfactory arrangement for both companies, and in September 1911, American-Hawaiian placed an order for Panaman's four older sister ships—Minnesotan, Dakotan, Montanan, and Pennsylvanian
    .

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Panaman". Miramar Ship Index. R.B.Haworth. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
  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 21 August 2008. Colton mistakenly refers to the ship as Panamanian.
  3. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 358.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Cochran and Ginger, p. 365.
  5. ^
    Naval Historical Center. "Panaman". DANFS
    .
  6. ^ a b c Cochran and Ginger, p. 357.
  7. ^ http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/173299.htm
  8. ^ a b Gleaves, pp. 258–59.
  9. ^ "California cargo of produce shipped to East". Los Angeles Times. 3 October 1914. p. II–8.
  10. ^ Hovey, p. 78.
  11. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 355–56.
  12. ^ "American-Hawaiian Steamship Co". Los Angeles Times. 13 April 1914. p. I–4.
  13. ^ "American-Hawaiian new steamships". The Wall Street Journal. 6 May 1912. p. 6.
  14. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 360.
  15. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 361.
  16. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 362.
  17. ^ a b Krenzelok, Greg. "Newport News Animal Transport ship List overseas to France during WW1". Retrieved 21 August 2008.
  18. ^ Crowell and Wilson, pp. 313–14.
  19. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 561.
  20. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 316.
  21. Naval Historical Center. "Minnesotan". DANFS
    .
  22. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 363
  23. ^ "Yesterday's foreign trade record in and out of Los Angeles Harbor". Los Angeles Times. 13 April 1923. p. I–15.
  24. ^ Mansfield, J. Carroll (18 June 1926). "Photographic Tie-ups With the Day's Local and Foreign News". Los Angeles Times. p. 6.
  25. ^ United Press (30 April 1940). "Mutiny is charged to crew on coast". The New York Times. p. 20.
  26. ^ "Panaman steams north after so-called mutiny". Los Angeles Times. 30 April 1940. p. 6.
  27. ^ "Union official hurls threat at inquiry into ship revolt". Los Angeles Times. 1 May 1940. p. 10.
  28. ^ a b "Port Arrivals/Departures: Panaman". Arnold Hague's Ports Database. Convoy Web. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
  29. ^ "Ship races for Manila with 2 ill with polio". Chicago Daily Tribune. 20 December 1946. p. 24.
  30. ^ "USN Ships: USS Panaman (ID # 3299), 1918–1919". Online Library of Selected Images. Navy Department, Naval Historical Center. 28 June 2004. Retrieved 22 August 2008.

Bibliography