SS Pennsylvanian

Coordinates: 49°22′29″N 0°53′31″W / 49.37472°N 0.89194°W / 49.37472; -0.89194
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"USS Pennsylvanian" redirects here. For other ships with a similar name, see USS Pennsylvania.
SS Pennsylvanian, seen here as USS Scranton (ID-3511) in 1919
SS Pennsylvanian, seen here as USS Scranton (ID-3511) in 1919
History
NameSS Pennsylvanian
OwnerAmerican-Hawaiian Steamship Company
Port of registryUnited States New York
OrderedSeptember 1911[4]
Builder
Cost$715,000[5]
Yard number127[2]
Launched29 March 1913[3]
CompletedJune 1913[2]
Identification
  • US Official number: 211297[1]
  • Code Letters LDBH[1]
FateExpropriated by U.S. Navy
History
United States
NameUSS Pennsylvanian (ID-3511)[6]
Acquired13 September 1918
Commissioned13 September 1918
RenamedUSS Scranton (ID-3511), November 1918[6]
NamesakeScranton, Pennsylvania[7]
Decommissioned16 July 1919
FateReturned to American-Hawaiian Steamship Co., 16 July 1919
History
NameSS Pennsylvanian
OwnerAmerican-Hawaiian Steamship Company
Port of registryUnited States New York
Identification
  • US Official number: 211297[1]
  • Code Letters LDBH (1919–34)[1]
  • Code Letters WACT (1934–44)[8]
FateExpropriated by U.S. Navy; sunk as part of
Mulberry Harbor off Normandy
, 16 July 1944
General characteristics
TypeCargo ship
Tonnage6,547 GRT[5] 10,175 LT DWT[5] 4,068 NRT[1]
Length
Beam53 ft 6 in (16.31 m)[7]
Draft29 ft 6 in (8.99 m)[7]
Propulsion
Speed15 knots (28 km/h)[7]
Capacity491,084 cubic feet (13,906.0 m3)[5]
NotesSister ships: Minnesotan, Dakotan, Montanan, Panaman, Washingtonian, Iowan, Ohioan[2]
General characteristics (as USS Scranton)
Displacement6,655 long tons (6,762 t)[7]
Troops1,840[10]
Complement94[7]
Armament7 × .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine guns[7]

SS Pennsylvanian was a cargo ship built in 1913 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I she was requisitioned by the United States Navy and commissioned as USS Pennsylvanian (ID-3511) in September 1918, and renamed two months later to USS Scranton. After her naval service, her original name of Pennsylvanian was restored.

Pennsylvanian was built by the

Armistice
in 1918.

After her naval service ended in 1919, she was returned to her original owners and resumed relatively uneventful cargo service over the next twenty years. Early in World War II, the ship was requisitioned by the

Normandy Invasion
.

Design and construction

In September 1911, the

cargo ships—Minnesotan, Dakotan, Montanan, and Pennsylvanian.[Note 1] The contract cost of the ships was set at the construction cost plus an 8% profit for Maryland Steel, 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 Pennsylvanian, including financing costs, was $70.35 per deadweight ton, which came out to just under $716,000.[4]

Pennsylvanian (Maryland Steel yard no. 127)

screw propeller. It could propel the ship at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h).[1][7][9] The engine had cylinders of 25½ inches (65 cm), 37 inches (94 cm), 53½ inches (136 cm) and 78 inches (200 cm) diameter by 54 inches (140 cm) stroke. It was built by the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland.[1]

Early career

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

Tehuantepec National Railway.[11] Eastbound shipments were primarily sugar and pineapple from Hawaii, while westbound cargoes were more general in nature.[12] Pennsylvanian sailed in this service on the west side of North America.[13][14][15]

After the

Straits of Magellan.[16] With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to taking that route.[16] Pennsylvanian, on the west side of the canal when it opened, was one of the first two eastbound steamers to traverse the canal during her trip to New York.[15][Note 3][Note 4] In late August, American-Hawaiian announced that Pennsylvanian would sail on a San Francisco – Panama Canal – Boston route, sailing opposite of Mexican, Honolulan, and sister ship Washingtonian.[17] When landslides closed the canal in October 1915, all American-Hawaiian ships, including Pennsylvanian, returned to the Straits of Magellan route again.[18]

Pennsylvanian's exact movements during 1916 and 1917 are unclear. She may have been in the half of the American-Hawaiian fleet that was

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.[19] However, when the United States entered World War I in April 1917, the entire American-Hawaiian fleet, including Pennsylvanian, was requisitioned by the United States Shipping Board (USSB), which then returned the ships for operation by American-Hawaiian.[20]

U.S. Navy service

On 13 September 1918, Pennsylvanian was transferred to the U.S. Navy at New York and

La Pallice the next day, where she unloaded her cargo before departing for New York on 5 November.[7]

USS El Sol waits for a towline from a launch from Scranton. Three of Scranton's men in the launch died when it capsized after this photograph was taken.

Arriving at New York on 15 November, four days after the

Armistice, Pennsylvanian was refitted as an animal transport ship, which, among other things, required the building of ramps and stalls for the animals.[7] Sometime in November, probably during her refit, she was renamed USS Scranton,[6] becoming the first U.S. Navy ship named in honor of the Pennsylvania city. Scranton sailed for France on 12 December, arriving at Saint-Nazaire on 29 December, and returning to New York on 29 January 1919.[7]

On 5 February, Scranton was transferred from the NOTS to the Navy's

drydock to undergo repairs.[25]

Pennsylvanian delivered 325 tons of steel parts for the Hale Telescope then under construction at Palomar Observatory outside of San Diego.

After repairs, Scranton made three roundtrips to France and carried some 6,000 troops and passengers home to the United States before she was decommissioned on 19 July. The ship was handed over to the USSB for return to American-Hawaiian, who restored her original name.[7]

Interwar years

Pennsylvanian 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,

Goat Island (present-day Yerba Buena Island) in a dense fog in San Francisco Bay. Pennsylvanian hit the stern of the ferry and caused damage to the ferry's superstructure and destroyed about 15 feet (4.6 m) of the ferry's railing. No one on either ship was injured.[26]

Other hints of Pennsylvanian's activities throughout the rest of her career can be found from contemporary newspaper reports. In October 1929, the Los Angeles Times reported on a shipment that included 2,500 to 3,000 radio sets among Pennsylvanian's 2,300 long tons (2,340 t) of cargo.[27] In March 1938, The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pennsylvanian's captain, C. M. Bamforth, had temporarily turned the deck of the cargo ship into a boatyard to build a 15-foot (4.6 m) catboat for his son in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Bamforth laid the keel while in San Francisco, bought copper rivets for the hull planking in Portland, Oregon, and began painting the boat after Pennsylvanian had traversed the Panama Canal. He expected to have the boat finished when Pennsylvanian arrived in Boston on 22 April.[28]

Damage to the Omaha Beach Mulberry harbor from the 19–22 June 1944 storm. SS Pennsylvanian was one of several ships scuttled about a month later to help form a breakwater to shelter the harbor.

In October the same year, Pennsylvanian delivered 325 long tons (330 t) of steel parts for the Hale Telescope then under construction at the Palomar Observatory outside San Diego. The ship had picked up the $375,000 cargo in Philadelphia before sailing for San Diego.[29]

World War II

At some point after the United States entered World War II, Pennsylvanian was requisitioned by the

Key West, Hampton Roads, Guantánamo Bay, and Cristóbal. In January 1943, Pennsylvanian called at Bandar Abbas, Iran, on the Persian Gulf, and returned to Caribbean sailings again by March 1943.[31]

Between May and September 1943, Pennsylvanian made four transatlantic crossings between New York and

Normandy Invasion.[7][Note 5]

In March 1945, the WSA offered a payment of $565,910 to American-Hawaiian for Pennsylvanian as part of a $7.2 million settlement for eleven requisitioned American-Hawaiian ships that had either been sunk, scuttled, or were to be retained by the government.[30]

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.
  2. ^ Further contracts on similar terms were signed in November 1911 and May 1912 to build four additional ships: Panaman, Washingtonian, Iowan, Ohioan. See: Cochran and Ginger, p. 358, and Colton.
  3. ^ Though the canal transit was part of an eastbound journey, the actual compass heading of the passage through the canal is actually closer to north.
  4. ^ The Luckenbach Line ship Pleiades was the other steamship to make the eastbound transit of the canal at the same time. Contemporary sources refer to the pair as the first two, making no distinction between which was first. See: Barrett, John (20 August 1914). "Greet first canal ships" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 7. Retrieved 12 August 2008. Also see: "All astounded by war news". Los Angeles Times. 15 August 1914. p. II– 8.
  5. Seine Bay
    on 20 July.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "LLOYD'S REGISTER, STEAMERS & MOTORSHIPS" (PDF). Plimsoll Ship Register. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-10-05. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d e Colton, Tim. "Bethlehem Steel Company, Sparrows Point MD". Shipbuildinghistory.com. The Colton Company. Archived from the original on 8 October 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  3. ^ a b c d "Pennsylvanian (2211297)". Miramar Ship Index. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  4. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 358.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Cochran and Ginger, p. 365.
  6. ^
    Naval History & Heritage Command. 2 May 2007. Archived from the original
    on 27 September 2008. Retrieved 16 April 2009.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Navy Department, Naval History & Heritage Command. "Scranton". DANFS. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  8. ^ "LLOYD'S REGISTER, NAVIRES A VAPEUR ET A MOTEURS" (PDF). Plimsoll Ship Register. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-10-05. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  9. ^ a b c Cochran and Ginger, p. 357.
  10. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 572.
  11. ^ Hovey, p. 78.
  12. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 355–56.
  13. ^ "American-Hawaiian Steamship Co". Los Angeles Times (display ad). 13 April 1914. p. I–4.
  14. ^ "American-Hawaiian new steamships". The Wall Street Journal. 6 May 1912. p. 6.
  15. ^ a b Barrett, John (20 August 1914). "Greet first canal ships" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 7. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  16. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 360.
  17. ^ "Pacific-Boston sailings begun". The Christian Science Monitor. 29 August 1914. p. 19.
  18. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 361.
  19. ^ Cochran and Ginger, p. 362.
  20. ^ a b Cochran and Ginger, p. 363.
  21. ^
    The Atlanta Constitution
    . 30 March 1919. p. 2.
  22. ^ a b Navy Department, Naval History & Heritage Command. "El Sol". DANFS. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  23. Naval Historical Center. 5 July 2004. Archived from the original
    on 11 September 2007. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  24. ^ a b c "82 Nurses return; served under fire". The Washington Post. 4 April 1919. p. 5.
  25. ^
    Naval Historical Center. Archived from the original
    on 28 September 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
  26. ^ "Fog causes two ferry smash-ups". Los Angeles Times. 29 November 1930. p. 1.
  27. ^ Cave, Wayne B. (7 October 1929). "Shipping News and Activities at Los Angeles Harbor". Los Angeles Times (column). p. 13.
  28. ^ "Boat built aboard ship; B. & M. reports for 1937". The Christian Science Monitor. 28 March 1938. p. 9.
  29. ^ "Mt. Palomar Observatory's steel parts taken off ship". Los Angeles Times. 26 October 1938. p. 9.
  30. ^ a b Stone, Leon (31 March 1945). "U.S. awards $7,247,637 to Hawaiian ship firm". The Christian Science Monitor. p. 4.
  31. ^ a b "Port Arrivals/Departures: Pennsylvanian". Arnold Hague's Ports Database. Convoy Web. Retrieved 12 August 2008.

Bibliography

External links

49°22′29″N 0°53′31″W / 49.37472°N 0.89194°W / 49.37472; -0.89194

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SS_Pennsylvanian&oldid=1149452282"