Mary Alice as a private yacht, sometime between 1910 and 1917. | |
History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | USS Mary Alice |
Namesake | Previous name retained |
Completed | 1897 |
Acquired | 10 August 1917 |
Commissioned | 10 August 1917 |
Fate | Sunk in collision 5 October 1918 |
Notes | Operated as private yacht Bernice 1897–1907, Oneta 1907–1910, and Mary Alice 1910–1917 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Patrol vessel |
Tonnage | 180 gross register tons |
Length | 174 ft (53 m) |
Beam | 18 ft 9 in (5.72 m) |
Draft | 9 ft 9 in (2.97 m) |
Propulsion | Steam engine, one shaft |
Speed | 20 knots |
Complement | 51 |
Armament |
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USS Mary Alice (SP-397) was a United States Navy patrol vessel commissioned in 1917 and sunk in 1918.
Mary Alice was built as the fast, private steam yacht Bernice in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. She was renamed Oneta in 1907 and Mary Alice in 1910.
On 10 August 1917, the U.S. Navy purchased Mary Alice from William J. Conners of Buffalo, New York, for use as a section patrol vessel during World War I. She was commissioned as USS Mary Alice (SP-397) the same day.
As a unit of the Naval Coast Defense Reserve, Mary Alice was assigned to the 3rd Naval District. She patrolled Long Island Sound and the approaches to New York Harbor.
In early October 1918, Mary Alice, with Captain William A. Gill, President of the U.S. Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey, embarked, served as an escort for the new submarine USS O-13 (Submarine No. 74) in Long Island Sound during O-13's pre-commissioning acceptance trials. On 5 October 1918 while conducting a submerged circular run off Bridgeport, Connecticut, O-13 suddenly rammed Mary Alice amidships and holed her. Mary Alice sank within a few minutes 1,800 yards (1,646 meters) south of Penfield Reef Light with no loss of life, and O‑13 quickly rescued her entire crew from the water.
USS O-13 (SS-74) was an O-class submarine of the United States Navy. Her keel was laid down on 6 March 1916 by the Lake Torpedo Boat Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
USS Nahma (SP-771) was a United States Navy patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919. She operated during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I, seeing service in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Aegean Sea, and Black Sea. Prior to her U.S. Navy servce, she was the private yacht Nahma, a sister ship of the yacht which became the U.S. Navy patrol vessel and presidential yacht USS Mayflower.
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USS Lexington II (SP-705), later USS SP-705, was an American patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1918.
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HMCS Wolf was an armed yacht of the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II that saw service on the British Columbia Coast of Canada. Constructed in 1915 as the yacht Wenowah, with the US entry into World War I, the vessel was taken into United States Navy service as USS Wenonah (SP-165) as a patrol ship. The vessel escorted convoys between the United States and Europe and between Gibraltar and Bizerte, Tunis and Genoa, Italy. After the war, Wenonah was loaned to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for three and a half years before being sold to private interests in 1928. In private ownership, the vessel was renamed at least twice, including Stranger and Blue Water.