USS West Bridge

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West Bridge shortly before completion in May 1918
West Bridge in dazzle camouflage shortly before completion in May 1918
History
United States
NameUSS West Bridge (ID-2888)
Builder
Yard number11[2]
Launched24 April 1918[1]
Completed26 May 1918[1]
Acquired26 May 1918[3]
Commissioned26 May 1918[3]
Decommissioned1 December 1919[3]
Identification
  • United States official number: 216348
  • Code Letters LKRQ (1919–34)
  • Code letters KJOO (1934–45)
FateReturned to United States Shipping Board
History
Name
  • 1919–1929: West Bridge
  • 1929–1939: Barbara Cates
  • 1939–1945: Pan Gulf
  • 1945–1966: Lermontov (Russian: Лермонтов)[10]
Namesake1945: Mikhail Lermontov
Owner
Operator
Port of registry
FateScrapped at
Split, Yugoslavia, 29 June 1966[1]
General characteristics
TypeCargo ship
Tonnage
Displacement12,200 long tons (12,400 t)[3]
Length
  • 409 ft 5 in (124.79 m) (pp)[1]
  • 423 ft 9 in (129.16 m) (oa)[3]
Beam54 ft 0 in (16.46 m)[3]
Draft24 ft 1 in (7.34 m) (mean)[3]
Depth of hold29 ft 9 in (9.07 m)[3]
Propulsion1 ×
triple-expansion steam engine,[5] 2,500 hp (1,900 kW)[10]
Speed10.5 knots (19.4 km/h)[3]
Complement88 (as USS West Bridge)[3]
Armament
  • World War I:
  • 1 × 4-inch (102 mm) gun
  • 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) gun[3]

USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was a

registry
.

West Bridge was one of the West ships, a series of steel-

Navy Cross
for their efforts.

After seven months of repair, West Bridge resumed Navy service until her December 1919 decommissioning and return to the USSB. She was laid up from 1922 to 1929, when she was sold for service on an intercoastal cargo service under the name Barbara Cates. By 1938, the ship had been renamed Pan Gulf for service with a subsidiary of the

Split, Yugoslavia
.

Design and construction

To replace shipping tonnage lost to German submarines during

Seattle.[13][14][Note 1] Because the United States had not yet entered World War I, the Shipping Controller could not order the ships directly and so, to skirt neutrality laws, these orders were made on the government's behalf by the Cunard Steamship Company.[15] The Duthie company laid down the keel of War Topaz as the eleventh ship begun at their shipyard.[1]

On 6 August 1917, the

launch, the ship had been renamed West Bridge,[1] becoming one of the West ships, cargo ships of similar size and design built by several shipyards on the West Coast of the United States.[17] Just a bit over one month later, on 26 May, the finished West Bridge was delivered to the United States Navy.[3]

As completed, the steel-

screw propeller to move the ship at up 11 knots (20 km/h).[1] For her U.S. Navy service in World War I, West Bridge was equipped with one 4-inch (102 mm) and one 3-inch (76 mm) gun.[3]

Military career

USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was

Puget Sound Navy Yard on 26 May. West Bridge took on an initial load of flour and departed 10 June for the East Coast.[Note 2] Along the way, the ship developed troubles with her engine, which required putting in at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone for repairs. Getting underway again on 4 July, West Bridge sailed for New York, arriving on 16 July.[3]

After refueling at New York, West Bridge joined Convoy HB-8 bound for France, sailing on 1 August in company with Navy cargo ship

Noma, destroyers Burrows and Smith, and French cruiser Marseillaise,[3][19] the convoy was 500 nautical miles (900 km) west of its destination of Le Verdon-sur-Mer by the end of the day on 15 August.[18][20]

Torpedo attack

At 17:40, West Bridge's engine broke down once again and her crew was unable to repair it. Falling off the back of the convoy and adrift, she signaled Marseillaise to request a tow. At sundown, shortly before 18:00, Montanan—still in the convoy, which was by now 4 nautical miles (7.4 km) ahead of West Bridge—was hit by one of three torpedoes launched by German submarine

starboard, and Hawkins ordered the crew to abandon ship. He and two crewmen remained behind until he felt sure that everyone else had departed. By the time the three left the stricken ship, water was up to the gunwales and lapping at the well deck.[3]

Immediately after the attack, Noma sped off to depth charge the submarine while sending an SOS for West Bridge. Destroyer Burrows arrived to take on West Bridge's survivors, who had situated themselves about a mile (2 km) from the still-floating ship. After the survivors boarded the destroyer, a head count revealed that four men were missing, but also turned up two female stowaways.[3]

drydock c. 1918. One of the ship's boilers
is visible in the left rear.

By the morning of 16 August, both Montanan and West Bridge were still afloat, with decks awash. Attempts to get Montanan under tow failed, and she foundered later in the morning. Meanwhile, Hawkins and his executive officer were taken by boat to West Bridge to assess her situation. After boarding the ship and finding three cargo holds and her engineering spaces completely flooded, Hawkins advised Burrows' captain that the situation was hopeless and he would only be endangering his ship, crew, and the West Bridge survivors by remaining alongside. Consequently, Burrows departed for Brest, France, leaving the destroyer Smith to stand by the stricken vessel.[3]

A volunteer work and salvage party from Smith, led by

Navy Cross for their efforts in saving the ship; W. W. Wotherspoon, the fleet salvage officer on Favorite, was also honored with a Navy Cross, in part for his salvage efforts for West Bridge.[23][Note 3]

The extent of the damage and the condition of West Bridge led to some erroneous reports of her loss. News articles on 24 August in both The New York Times and the Chicago Daily Tribune reported the sinking,[24] and the mistaken information was recorded by authors Benedict Crowell and Robert Forrest Wilson in their work The Road to France: The Transportation of Troops and Military Supplies, 1917–1918.[25]

After West Bridge underwent seven months of repairs, the ship resumed service with the NOTS through 1 December 1919, at which time she was decommissioned and handed over to the USSB.[3]

Interwar years

The United States Official Number 216348 and

Pacific coast from Baltimore, Norfolk, Virginia, Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida. The addition of Barbara Cates and other ships purchased around the same time allowed the Arrow Line to increase its sailings from fortnightly to once every ten days.[27]
Barbara Cates' nine years with the Arrow Line were uneventful.

In 1934, her Code Letters were changed to KJOO.

Boston during this time.[31]

SS Pan Gulf sailed in 18 transatlantic convoys, like this typical one, seen in 1942.

In October 1941, The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pan Gulf had become stuck in the mud off Governors Island after her crew misjudged how far to back out of her berth at the Army base there. The first, unsuccessful attempt to free Pan Gulf involved eight tugs, but the ship did not budge. The newspaper, which had also reported that there was no apparent damage to Pan Gulf in the grounding, carried no further reports on the ship.[32]

World War II and later career

After the United States entered World War II, Pan Gulf frequently sailed in convoys on the North Atlantic, as well as some in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Between April and September 1942, Pan Gulf made two roundtrips from the U.S. to Liverpool.[33] In September, the cargo ship sailed from New York to the Caribbean to take on a load of bauxite in early November,[34] and then sailed on to Galveston, Texas, before returning to New York in mid-February 1943.[33]

In late February, Pan Gulf began the first of a further seven roundtrips to the United Kingdom over the next 21 months, when she sailed from New York in Convoy HX 228 for

Halifax. In July, the United States Maritime Commission (USMC) purchased Pan Gulf from the Pan-Atlantic Line, overpaying her value by 16 times, according to Senator George Aiken (RVT).[35]

On 5 May 1945, the USMC turned over Pan Gulf to the

Far East Shipping Company (FESCO) of the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease;[36] FESCO renamed the ship Lermontov (Russian: Лермонтов, Russian pronunciation: [ˈlʲɛrməntəf]) after the poet Mikhail Lermontov. The Soviets armed the ship with a 4-inch (100 mm) gun and other weapons and employed her in cargo duties in support of the war.[36]

At war's end, Lermontov remained with FESCO through 1950. At that time she was transferred to the

Split, Yugoslavia on 26 June 1966.[1]

Notes

  1. War Ruby
    . See: McKellar, pp. 283–84.
  2. ^ The West ships, to avoid sailing empty to the East Coast, loaded grain products intended for the United Kingdom, France, and Italy and sailed to Europe without unloading or transferring their cargo. This avoided extra handling of the cargo and the United States Shipping Board, by prior arrangement, then received an equivalent amount of cargo space in foreign ships for other American cargoes. See: Crowell and Wilson, pp. 358–59.
  3. Mount Vernon
    , Conner, and Murray. See: Stringer, p. 147.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "West Bridge (5520680)". Miramar Ship Index. Retrieved 1 September 2008.
  2. ^ a b Colton, Tim. "J. F. Duthie & Company, Seattle WA". Shipbuildinghistory.com. The Colton Company. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Naval Historical Center. "West Bridge". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
  4. ^ Register of Ships (1937–38 ed.). "Scan of page 'Ban–Bar'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Register of Ships (1938–39 ed.). "Scan of page 'Pam–Pan'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  6. ^ Register of Ships (1940–41 ed.). "Scan of page 'Pan'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  7. ^ Register of Ships (1944–45 ed.). "Scan of page 'Pan'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  8. ^ a b Register of Ships (1945–46, supplementary ed.). "Scan of page 'L'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  9. ^ Register of Ships (1943–44 ed.). "Scan of page 'Pan'" (PDF). Hosted at plimsollshipdata.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2009.
  10. ^ a b c d e f "Реестр флота ДВМП: Лермонтов (Pan Gulf)" (in Russian). FESCO Transport Group. Retrieved 4 September 2008. Google translation into English.
  11. ^ a b "Shipping Board approves sale". Los Angeles Times. 27 March 1929. p. 13.
  12. ^ a b McKellar, p. 270.
  13. ^ McKellar, pp. 283–84.
  14. ^ a b c Mitchell & Sawyer, pp. 8–9
  15. ^ Mitchell & Sawyer, p. ix.
  16. ^ McKellar, p. 271.
  17. ^ Crowell and Wilson, pp. 358–59.
  18. ^ a b Naval Historical Center. "West Alsek". DANFS.
  19. ^ Mann. "Burrows". DANFS.
  20. ^ "Montanan (2211088)". Miramar Ship Index. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  21. ^ Stringer, p. 54.
  22. ^ Stringer, p. 137.
  23. ^ a b Stringer, p. 147.
  24. ^ "Three of our ships torpedoed; 19 missing from the crews" (PDF). The New York Times. 24 August 1918. p. 1. Retrieved 27 May 2009. "3 U. S. ships in foreign waters sunk by U-boats". Chicago Daily Tribune. 24 August 1918. p. 2.
  25. ^ Crowell and Wilson, p. 530.
  26. ^ "Navires a Vapeur et a Moteurs" (PDF). Lloyd's Register. Lloyd's of London. 1930. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2018. Retrieved 26 February 2018 – via Plimsoll Ship Data.
  27. ^ Drake, Waldo (13 May 1929). "Shipping news and activities at los angeles harbor". Los Angeles Times. p. 14.
  28. ^ "Steamers & Motorships" (PDF). Lloyd's Register. Lloyd's of London. 1934. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2018. Retrieved 26 February 2018 – via Plimsoll Ship Data.
  29. The Pittsburgh Courier
    . p. 23.
  30. ^ Finch, Ted; Gilbert Provost. "WWI Standard Ships: T". WWI Standard Built Ships. Mariners. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  31. ^ de la Pedraja Tomán, p. 564.
  32. ^ "Stuck in mud craft awaits high tide aid". The Christian Science Monitor. 13 October 1941. p. 2.
  33. ^ a b "Port Arrivals/Departures: Pan Gulf". Arnold Hague's Ports Database. Convoy Web. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  34. ^ "Convoy TAG.18". Arnold Hague Convoy Database. ConvoyWeb. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
  35. ^ "Aiken scores ship deal". The New York Times. Associated Press. 24 October 1943. p. 38.
  36. ^ a b Radigan, Joseph M. (2006). "West Bridge (ID 2888)". Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive. NavSource Online. Retrieved 4 September 2008.

Bibliography

External links