USS Siboney (ID-2999)

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For other ships with the same name, see USS Siboney.
USS Siboney with camouflage paint
"Periscope" view of the Siboney in convoy, by Musician Loren C. Holmberg, USN (c. 1919), shows the dazzle camouflage applied to the ship during World War I.
History
United States
NameUSS Siboney (ID-2999)
NamesakeSiboney, Cuba
BuilderWilliam Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia
Yard number434
Launchedas SS Oriente, 15 August 1917
RenamedSiboney, 28 February 1918
Acquired8 April 1918
Commissioned8 April 1918
Decommissioned10 September 1919
IdentificationOfficial number: 216082
FateReturned to Ward Line
United States
NameSS Siboney
OwnerWard Line (New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Co.)
Route
AcquiredAugust 1919
In service1919
Refit1924
Out of service1940
FateChartered by American Export Lines
United States
OperatorAmerican Export Lines
RouteJersey City–Lisbon, 1940–1941
Acquired1940
In service1940
Out of service28 May 1941
Fatechartered by U.S. Army
United States
NameUSAT Siboney
In serviceMay 1941
RenamedUSAHS Charles A. Stafford, January 1944
NamesakeCaptain Charles A. Stafford, U.S. Army Medical Corps
Reclassifiedhospital ship, January 1944
RefitJanuary–September 1944
Out of serviceFebruary 1948
Homeport
FateScrapped, 1957
General characteristics
Displacement11,298 tons
Length443 ft 3 in (135.10 m)
Beam60 ft (18.3 m)
Draft24 ft 6 in (7.47 m)
Speed17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph)
Troops
  • 3,100
  • 3,900 after
    Armistice[1]
Complement346
Armament
Differences as SS Siboney:
Crew127[2]
Differences as USAT Siboney:[3]
Tonnage6,937
Speed16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Range6,000 nmi (11,000 km; 6,900 mi)
Capacitycargo: 116,000 cu ft (3,300 m3)
Troops1,201
Differences as USAHS Charles A. Stafford:[4]
Tonnage7,587
Range8,000 nmi (15,000 km; 9,200 mi)
Capacity
  • patients: 704
  • cargo: none
ArmamentNone

USS Siboney (ID-2999) was a

New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Co. (commonly called the Ward Line).[note 1] The ship was operated under charter by American Export Lines beginning in late 1940. During World War II she served the U.S. Army as transport USAT Siboney and as hospital ship
USAHS Charles A. Stafford.

As a transport during World War I, Siboney made 17 transatlantic voyages for the navy carrying troops to and from Europe, and had the shortest average in-port turnaround time of all navy transports. During her maiden voyage, her steering gear malfunctioned which resulted in a collision between two other troopships in the convoy.

After her World War I service ended, Siboney was returned to the Ward Line and placed in New York–Cuba–Spain transatlantic service; the liner ran aground at Vigo, Spain in September 1920. Despite considerable damage, she was repaired and placed back in service. In late 1921, Siboney was switched to New York–Cuba–Mexico routes, which were a popular and inexpensive way for Americans to escape Prohibition. In late 1940, she was chartered to American Export Lines to return Americans fleeing Europe at the outset of World War II, making seven roundtrips from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Lisbon.

During

European and the Pacific Theatres. After the end of her army service, the ship was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet
in February 1948, and sold for scrapping in 1957.

World War I naval service

Oriente was a combination cargo and passenger ship built by William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia, for the Ward Line. In mid-1917 the United States Shipping Board (USSB) commandeered and received title to all private shipbuilding projects in progress, including the still-incomplete Oriente and her sister ship Orizaba. Plans for both ships were modified for troop carrying duties.[5] Oriente was launched on 15 August 1917, renamed Siboney on 28 February 1918, delivered to the navy on 8 April, and commissioned the same day.[6]

The first of two lifeboats from the torpedoed British troopship Dwinsk to be rescued by Siboney on 21 June 1918

Siboney sailed from Philadelphia on 16 April as a unit of the

Hampton Roads on 23 April and joined her first convoy the following day. On 25 April, her rudder jammed; and, in the ensuing confusion, transports Aeolus and Huron collided and had to return to New York. On 4 May, the convoy was joined by the war zone escort of eight destroyers and, on 6 May, Siboney arrived at Brest. Debarking her troops, she sailed the following day and arrived at Hoboken, New Jersey, on 15 May.[6]

Siboney embarked her second contingent of troops at

dirigible, and two French hydroplanes. Siboney arrived in Bordeaux on 8 June and departed the following day but remained anchored in the mouth of the Gironde until 13 June, awaiting the tanker Woonsocket. On 15 June, the convoy passed six empty lifeboats from the torpedoed transport USS President Lincoln. Siboney entered the American war zone on 20 June, and the next day rescued survivors of the British troopship, Dwinsk, which had been torpedoed three days earlier. The transport arrived at New York on 22 June and anchored in the North River.[6]

Siboney sailed for France on 30 June; after delivering her troops at Brest on 12 July, she returned to New York on 25 July. She sailed again on 31 July. Before arriving at Brest on 12 August, she had to maneuver several times to evade possible submarine contacts. She arrived at New York on 22 August and was given a two-week repair period.[6]

On 4 September, Siboney sailed from New York on her fifth crossing and arrived at Saint-Nazaire nine days later. On 15 September, she embarked a number of wounded troops and left Saint-Nazaire the same day, but, due to heavy submarine activity, swung at anchor for several days before her convoy sailed. She arrived on 29 September at New York. On her sixth eastward crossing, between 6 and 15 October, an influenza epidemic broke out among the troops, killing a number of soldiers. Sailing from Brest on 16 October, the transport returned to New York on 24 October.[6]

Siboney had already embarked troops for her next voyage when, on 3 November, she was ordered to disembark them. She sailed the following day with an army

Armistice, and was met by a cheering crowd.[6]

Siboney arrives in New York Harbor in late 1918 or 1919 with returning soldiers crowding the rails.

Siboney then began her peacetime mission of returning American veterans from Europe to the United States. After embarking 513 wounded men at Saint-Nazaire, she moved to Brest on the 15th and took on 600 more passengers. She sailed the same day under escort and reached New York on 24 November. During the next ten months, Siboney made ten more round trips between the United States and France, returning over 3,000 troops per trip when fully loaded.[6] On one such return trip in August 1919, Siboney carried Admiral Henry T. Mayo and Congressman Thomas S. Butler home from France.[7]

Siboney returned to New York on 2 September at the conclusion of her 17th trip, having traveled over 115,000 nautical miles (213,000 km) and transported approximately 55,000 military passengers to and from French ports.[6] According to the Statistical Department of the U.S. Navy, Siboney had the shortest average in-port turnaround time out of 37 U.S. Navy transports used during World War I. The ship completed 17 round trips and had an average turn-around time of just under 30 days per trip, almost ten days shorter than the average of 39.8 days.[8]

On 10 September at Hoboken, Siboney was decommissioned and turned over to the War Department, who returned the ship to the Ward Line, her original owners.[6]

Interwar civilian service

After her reacquisition, the Ward Line placed SS Siboney in transatlantic service on a New York to

Santander, and Vigo route. On 9 September 1920, the ship ran aground in the harbor at Vigo.[9] Initial efforts to re-float her were unsuccessful, but by late October, Siboney had been repaired enough to make it to Shields.[10][11] Despite considerable damage, Siboney was refitted and placed in service again and, by March 1921, the Ward Line was advertising passage to Spain via Havana aboard her.[12][13] The Ward Line, however, abandoned the New York–Cuba–Spain service later in 1921 due to a lack of passengers.[14]

By November 1921, Siboney was placed in New York–Cuba–Mexico service, where business thrived, in part because of

boiler room workers were arrested when police became suspicious of a man who had apparently just delivered a supply of alcohol to the docked ship.[17]

Siboney underwent a major refit in 1924 during which time she was replaced on her routes by SS Yucatán, formerly the

Miami about the severity of the Great Miami Hurricane when she passed there shortly after the storm hit in September 1926.[18]

On 18 February 1928, Siboney rammed and sank the coal barge Seneca off

the Battery, killing the tug's engineer.[20]

Siboney continued her same routes into the 1930s, and by 1933 typical runs for Siboney were from New York to Havana, Progreso, and Veracruz and back, omitting Progreso on the return.

armistice with France.[24][25]

On 12 April 1941 at 13:30, 320 nautical miles (590 km) out of Lisbon, the ship—painted with a large American flag and "American Export" lettering on each side—was accosted by "two submarine chasers flying British ensigns" that fired shots over Siboney's bow, one of which landed less than 100 feet (30 m) away from the ship. According to Siboney's captain, Wenzel Habel, the two ships were British corvette types marked "K-25" and "K-125"—which may have been Flower-class corvettes HMS Azalea (K25) and HMCS Kenogami (K125). After answering questions from "K-25" shouted via loudspeaker, Siboney was allowed to resume her course. Habel filed a protest with British officials when Siboney docked at Bermuda.[26]

World War II Army service

USAT Siboney in port, c. 1942–1943

At the conclusion of her seventh and final journey for American Export, Siboney was placed under time charter for duty as an Army transport.[3][23] After a hasty outfitting, the redesignated USAT Siboney was put to work transporting troops. Based in New York, she made trips up and down the Atlantic and into the Caribbean, and, by the end of 1941, had called at Bermuda, San Juan, Trinidad, St. John's, Charleston, Newport News, Cristóbal, Jamaica, and Panama.[3]

December 1941 saw Siboney depart from New York to Trinidad and on to

Halifax, Iceland, and the Clyde, Scotland, in late May, returning to New York in July. Another trip to England and back followed in September 1942.[3]

On 1 July 1942 the ship had been acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) under a bareboat charter converting the Army's time charter to a sub bareboat charter. On 9 August 1943 WSA purchased the ship with the Army's bareboat charter continued.[27]

In early December 1942 Siboney departed for

drydocking and repairs after she collided with SS City of Kimberly. After returning to New York in February 1943, she made several transatlantic runs, calling at Casablanca, Oran, Gibraltar, Clyde, Durban, Rio de Janeiro, Trinidad, and Cuba over the next 11 months. Siboney returned to New York for major repairs and reboilering at Bethlehem Steel Co. In January 1944, while undergoing this work, the ship was selected for conversion to a hospital ship.[3]

U.S. Signal Corps photo print of the USAHS Charles A. Stafford, 1944

The ship was renamed USAHS Charles A. Stafford after

Captain Charles A. Stafford of the U.S. Army Medical Corps, who was killed during the air raid on Broome, Western Australia, while participating in the evacuation of Java on 3 March 1942. With her conversion complete in September 1944, the Stafford, equipped with new boilers, a single stack in place of her original two, and other improvements, moved to her new homeport of Charleston.[4][28] From that port the ship made monthly runs to the United Kingdom and back until May 1945, interrupting the pattern only once for a trip to Gibraltar and Marseilles. Steaming to New York at the conclusion of her last transatlantic run, Charles A. Stafford was overhauled for duty in the South Pacific.[4]

With the alterations complete, the veteran ship—now homeported at

Eniwetok and back.[4]

After sailing to her new homeport of New York via the Panama Canal during February 1946, Charles A. Stafford resumed her North Atlantic runs to the UK.[4]

On 30 August 1946 the Army transferred the ship to the

James River Reserve Fleet. Kept on reserve under the name Siboney, the ship was sold by the Maritime Administration on 2 January 1957 for $286,125 to Bethlehem Steel for scrapping.[27]

Footnotes

  1. ^ While Commonly called Ward Line all official documents such as registers and many references, including DANFS and Roland Charles' Troopships of World War II, use the owner's name: New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Company.

Notes

  1. ^ Gleaves, p. 93
  2. ^ a b "$5,000 gems stolen from woman at sea" (fee). The New York Times. 29 April 1935. p. 3. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  3. ^ a b c d e Charles, p. 59.
  4. ^ a b c d e Charles, p. 332.
  5. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 321.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Naval History and Heritage Command. "Siboney I (ID-2999) 1918–1919". DANFS.
  7. ^ Naval Historical Center (28 November 2005). "USS Siboney (ID # 2999), 1918–1919 – Actions and Activities". Online Library of Selected Images. Navy Department, Naval Historical Center. Archived from the original on 24 June 2007. Retrieved 20 January 2008.
  8. ^ United States Navy, Statistical Department (16 August 1919). "The Original U.S. Troop Transports". Archived from the original (image file) on 6 February 2007. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
  9. ^ "Siboney aground at Vigo" (PDF). The New York Times. 11 September 1920. p. 10. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  10. ^ "Pittsburgh towed in" (PDF). The New York Times. 14 September 1920. p. 10. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  11. ^ "Shipping and mails" (PDF). The New York Times. 27 October 1920. p. 22. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  12. ^ a b c d Alderson, Michael. "Fleet List". Wardline.com. Archived from the original on 12 October 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
  13. ^ "Spanish ports…". The New York Times. 28 March 1921. p. 18.
  14. ^ a b Flayhart, p. 292.
  15. ^ a b c Larsson, Björn (21 April 2007). "Cuba Mail Line (New York & Cuba Mail Steamship Co. – Ward Line)". Maritime Timetable Images. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
  16. ^ "Seize hidden liquor on ship board boat" (PDF). The New York Times. 28 June 1922. p. 14. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  17. ^ "Liquor death list mounts to eight" (fee). The New York Times. 28 December 1923. p. 17. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  18. ^ "Florida cut off for hours by storm" (fee). The New York Times. 20 September 1926. p. 4. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  19. ^ "Ward liner Siboney rams and sinks barge" (fee). The New York Times. 19 February 1928. p. 13. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  20. ^ "Liner rams tugboat, engineer drowns" (fee). The New York Times. 6 January 1929. p. 36. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  21. ^ Alderson, Michael. "History". Wardline.com. Archived from the original on 29 May 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
  22. ^ Alderson, Michael. "S.S. Siboney of 1917". Wardline.com. Archived from the original on 19 October 2007. Retrieved 19 January 2008.
  23. ^ a b "Ship Finds $750,000 Ambergris – Maybe" (fee). The New York Times. 27 May 1941. p. 25. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  24. ^ "Men's Fate". Time. 13 January 1941. Archived from the original on September 3, 2009. Retrieved 2008-01-21.
  25. ^ Schiff, p. 379
  26. ^ "U.S. liner halted by warships' fire" (fee). The New York Times. 22 April 1941. p. 5. Retrieved 2008-01-19.
  27. ^ a b Maritime Administration. "Charles A. Stafford (See Status cards)". Ship History Database Vessel Status Card. U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration. Archived from the original on 11 November 2018. Retrieved 10 November 2018.
  28. ^ Naval Historical Center (28 November 2005). "USAT Siboney (Transport, 1941–1944). Later the Army Hospital Ship Charles A. Stafford (1944–1948)". Online Library of Selected Images: Ships of the United States Army. Navy Department, Naval Historical Center. Archived from the original on 1 January 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2008.

References

External links

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