USS Sudbury

Last updated
History
US flag 48 stars.svgUnited States
Name
  • Sudbury (1917–1927)
  • Munbeaver (1927–1938)
  • Capo Alba (1938–1944)
Builder Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation, Chester, Pennsylvania
Yard number340
Launched29 September 1917
CompletedMarch 1918
Acquired5 March 1918
Commissioned5 March 1918
Decommissioned11 April 1919
Maiden voyage20 March 1918
Stricken11 April 1919
Identification
  • Official Number: 215991
  • Signal letters" LJQV
FateScuttled Nantes, France 18 August 1944, raised and broken up 1946.
General characteristics
Type Cargo ship
Tonnage5,075  GRT
Displacement10,400 tons
Length
  • 402 ft 1 in (122.6 m) LOA
  • 384 ft 8 in (117.2 m) Registered
Beam51 ft 2 in (15.6 m)
Draft23 ft 10.5 in (7.3 m) (mean)
Depth27 ft 7 in (8.4 m)
Depth of hold25 ft 7 in (7.8 m)
Propulsion1 Westinghouse steam turbine
Speed11 kn (13 mph; 20 km/h)
Complement
  • 52 (1918 reference)
  • 104 (DANFS)
Armament

USS Sudbury (ID-2149) was the cargo ship Sudbury under construction for the Shawmut Steamship Company that was taken over by the United States Navy on completion and in commission from 1918 to 1919. After naval service the ship was returned to Shawmut and operated by that company until its merger with companies that included the American Ship and Commerce Navigation Company and operated by that company until 1927. The ship was acquired by the Munson Steamship Line and operated by that company until sold to Cia Genovese di Nav a Vapori SA, Genoa, Italy and renamed Capo Alba.

Contents

The ship was in the Atlantic in 1941, taking refuge in the Canary Islands. The ship, along with a tanker, escaped Tenerife 1 April 1941 to the continent and was taken over by Germany 8 September 1943. Capo Alba was damaged by bombing at Nantes March 1944 and scuttled there 18 August 1944. The hulk was raised and broken up in 1946.

Civilian cargo ship

Construction

Sudbury was built as a commercial cargo ship for the Shawmut Steamship Company in 1917 by the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation, Chester, Pennsylvania as hull number 340. [1] The ship, first of five new ships being built for Shawmut after the company sold all its older ships to France, was launched 29 September 1917. [2] [3]

Sudbury was an oil fueled, steam turbine driven ship with three Babcock & Wilcox boilers supplying steam to one Westinghouse turbine and fuel capacity of 955 tons of fuel oil. [note 1] The ship was 5,075  GRT, 10,400 tons displacement, 402 ft 1 in (122.6 m) length overall, 384 ft 8 in (117.2 m) registered length, 51 ft 2 in (15.6 m) breadth, 27 ft 7 in (8.4 m) depth with a mean draft of 23 ft 10.5 in (7.3 m). [4] [5] [note 2] When completed in March 1918 and registered Sudbury was issued official number 215991 with signal letters LJQV and Boston as home port. [4]

World War I Navy cargo ship

The U.S. Navy acquired Sudbury for World War I service on 5 March 1918, before any operation by Shawmut, and commissioned her the same day at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as USS Sudbury with the naval registry Identification Number (Id. No.) 2149. [6] There is a discrepancy between the contemporary (1918) Ships' Data U.S. Naval Vessels and Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships on complement. The first has 10 officers, 52 men while the second has complement as 104. [5] [6] The ship was armed with one 5-inch, 51 caliber gun and one 6 pounder gun. [5]

Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, Sudbury loaded a cargo of United States Army supplies and departed Philadelphia on 20 March 1918 for New York City, where she joined a convoy that got underway for France on 24 March 1918. She arrived at Brest, France, on 8 April 1918. From there, she proceeded to Bordeaux, France, unloaded her cargo, and departed on 5 May 1918 for New York City. [6] On the return from this maiden voyage there was a turbine casualty in which teeth were broken on the starboard unit and the vessel could make only 9 kn (10 mph; 17 km/h) using the low pressure turbine alone. The problem proved to be faulty material. [7]

Sudbury made three more voyages to France in 1918. [6] On 10 January 1919, Sudbury departed Philadelphia for Trieste. She completed the round-trip by arriving at Philadelphia on 3 April 1919 where, on 11 April 1919, Sudbury was decommissioned, stricken from the Navy List, and returned to the USSB. [6]

Post war cargo ship

The Shawmut Line again operated the ship until 1925 but the line had already been absorbed into W. Avril Harriman's interests which included the American Ship and Commerce Corporation. [8] By 1925 the ship, with home port of New York, was operating under the American Ship and Commerce Navigation Company. [9] in 1927 the ship was renamed Munbeaver owned by the Sudbury Steam Ship Corporation. [10] [note 3] In 1930 the ship was operating for the Munson Steamship Line which operated the ship until sometime in 1937 when it is registered to Cia Genovese di Nav a Vapori SA, Genoa, Italy as Capo Alba. [11]

Fate

On 29 March 1941 Capo Alba was among the Italian shipping showing activity in the Canary Islands preparing to sail from Tenerife and on 1 April the ship sailed with the tanker Burano. [12] [13] The ship escaped successfully and was taken over by the German Navy 8 September 1943. [1] [14] Capo Alba was bombed and damaged at Nantes March 1944 and eventually scuttled there 18 August 1944. The hulk was raised and broken up in 1946. [1]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The reference used below, Hodgkinson, "Progress in Turbine Ship Propulsion," on page 194 notes the manufacturer as being Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company. Current Wikipedia links to "Westinghouse" and its various components now do not accurately reflect this company. These were some of the early turbine drives for ships and the article notes the many advantages and a few problems with this then advanced ship propulsion system. This ship had fuel oil rather than vast coal bunkers and gangs of stokers and turbine instead of the usual reciprocal steam engine, making it advanced for the time. The reference has a detailed contemporary engineering view of these propulsion systems.
  2. ↑ The numbers are from both the Merchant Vessel Register and Construction & Repair Bureau sources. When there the expected slight differences the greater number is used. Such differences are expected even for the same measurement basis and usually a matter of inches.
  3. ↑ The name, Munbeaver and soon to be Munson Steamship Line association with a corporation named for the ship's previous name may indicate a holding company during transition.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steamship</span> Type of steam-powered vessel

A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 1800s; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer. As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel, so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.

USS <i>Oglala</i> US minelayer sunk in 1941 at Pearl Harbor

USS Oglala (ID-1255/CM-4/ARG-1) was a minelayer in the United States Navy. Commissioned as Massachusetts, she was renamed Shawmut a month later, and in 1928, was renamed after the Oglala, a sub-tribe of the Lakota, residing in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

USS <i>Aroostook</i> (CM-3) Cargo ship of the United States Navy

USS Aroostook (ID-1256/CM-3/AK-44) was the Eastern Steamship Company's Bunker Hill converted for planting the World War I North Sea Mine Barrage. Bunker Hill was built in 1907 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for passenger service between Boston and New York City. Bunker Hill was one of three sister ships, the others being Massachusetts and Old Colony, delivered as passenger/cargo ships by William Cramp & Sons in 1907. They were among the eight ships acquired by the U.S. Navy in November 1917. Bunker Hill and Massachusetts were converted to minelayers at the Boston Navy Yard. Old Colony was used as a district scout until sent across the Atlantic and turned over to the British in 1919.

USS <i>Aeolus</i> (ID-3005)

USS Aeolus (ID-3005), sometimes also spelled Æolus, was a United States Navy transport ship during World War I. She was formerly the North German Lloyd liner SS Grosser Kurfürst, also spelled Großer Kurfürst, launched in 1899 that sailed regularly between Bremen and New York. At the outset of World War I the ship was interned by the United States and, when the U.S. entered the conflict in 1917, was seized and converted to a troop transport.

USAT <i>John L. Clem</i> Ship

John L. Clem was built as the cargo and passenger liner Santa Ana for W. R. Grace and Company for service in Grace Line's South American service but was requisitioned before completion by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) in 1918 due to World War I. The ship was chartered back to Grace after completion until turned over to the United States Navy to be briefly commissioned as the troop transport USS Santa Ana (ID-2869) from 11 February 1919 to 21 July 1919.

The Munson Steamship Line, frequently shortened to the Munson Line, was an American steamship company that operated in the Atlantic Ocean primarily between U.S. ports and ports in the Caribbean and South America. The line was founded in 1899 as a freight line, added passenger service in 1919, and went out of business in 1937.

USS <i>Tuluran</i> Cargo ship of the United States Navy

USS Tuluran (AG-46) was under construction for the British at the Toledo Shipbuilding Company as the cargo ship War Bayonet in 1917 when requisitioned by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) for World War I service. The ship was launched and completed as Lake Superior. The Navy acquired the ship from the USSB with assignment to the Naval Overseas Transport Service (NOTS) with the identification number ID-2995. The ship was returned to the USSB which sold the vessel in 1926. The ship was renamed C. D. Johnston III and that vessel operated out of Oregon until again sold and based in San Francisco. Another sale resulted in the vessel being renamed Anna Shafer which was acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) in 1942 and allocated to the Navy for World War II service.

SS <i>Edward Luckenbach</i>

SS Edward Luckenbach was the first of five new cargo ships to be built for the Luckenbach Steamship Company by Fore River Shipbuilding Corporation. The ship was launched in September 1916, delivered in November and briefly operated as such before being requisitioned for World War I service. The ship was one of the cargo vessels in the first large convoy transporting U.S. Army forces to France. After that convoy the ship served as a U.S. Army Chartered Transport (USACT) until converted by the Army to a troop ship and turned over to the Navy a few months before the war's end. The Navy commissioned the ship as USS Edward Luckenbach assigning the miscellaneous identification number ID-1662 in August 1918. The transport made one wartime voyage with continued voyages returning the Army to the U.S. until August 1919.

SS <i>El Capitan</i>

El Capitan, United States Official Number 285587, was built in 1917 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Newport News, Virginia for the Southern Pacific Company's Atlantic Steamship Lines. In 1915 the line operated from the North River piers 49–52 at the foot of 11th Street in New York to New Orleans under the flag and name of Morgan Line, which combined with the Southern Pacific's rail service from the Pacific Coast was known as the Sunset Gulf Route. During World War I the ship was purchased from the builder before delivery to the owner by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) which later turned the ship over to the United States Navy which placed her in commission as USS El Capitan (ID-1407) from 1918 to 1919. El Capitan was returned to commercial service by the Southern Pacific Company until just before the United States entry into World War II when the United States War Shipping Administration (WSA) acquired the ship, changed her registry to Panama and placed her in operation under its agent, United States Lines. El Capitan was in the Arctic convoy PQ 17 to the Soviet Union when she came under air attack on 9 July 1942, was damaged and abandoned to be sunk by torpedo just after midnight on 10 July.

USS <i>Walter D. Munson</i> Cargo ship of the United States Navy

USS Walter D. Munson (ID-1510) was a United States Navy cargo ship in commission from 1918 to 1919.

USS <i>Munsomo</i> Cargo ship of the United States Navy

USS Munsomo (ID-1607) was a cargo ship that served in the United States Navy from 1918 to 1919.

SS <i>Maui</i> (1916)

SS Maui was built as a commercial passenger ship in 1916 for the Matson Navigation Company of San Francisco and served between the United States West Coast and Hawaii until acquired for World War I service by the United States Navy on 6 March 1918. The ship was commissioned USS Maui (ID-1514) serving as a troop transport from 1918 to 1919. The ship was returned to Matson for commercial service September 1919 and continued in commercial service until purchased by the United States Army in December 1941. USAT Maui was laid up by the Army in 1946 and scrapped in 1948.

SS <i>Ancon</i> (1901) American cargo and passenger ship; first to officially transit the Panama Canal (1914)

SS Ancon was an American cargo and passenger ship that became the first ship to officially transit the Panama Canal in 1914 although the French crane boat Alexandre La Valley completed the first trip in stages during construction prior to the official opening. The ship was built as Shawmut for the Boston Steamship Company by the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland and put into Pacific service operating out of Puget Sound ports for Japan, China and the Philippine Islands. Shawmut and sister ship Tremont were two of the largest United States commercial ships in service at the time and the company eventually found them too expensive to operate.

USS <i>Lake Tulare</i> Cargo ship of the United States Navy

USS Lake Tulare (ID-2652) was a cargo ship of the United States Navy that served during World War I and its immediate aftermath.

SS <i>Antilles</i> (1906)

SS Antilles was an American passenger-cargo ship launched in 1906. Chartered by the U.S. Army in 1917 for use as a troop transport ship, Antilles was sunk by a German U-boat on 17 October 1917, resulting in the loss of 67 lives. At the time of its destruction the Antilles sinking represented the largest single greatest loss of American lives to that point in World War I.

SS <i>Jacona</i> (1918) First floating electric power plant

SS Jacona was an Emergency Fleet Corporation Design 1014 cargo ship launched in 1919 for the United States Shipping Board (USSB). In the glut of shipping after World War I, the ship was laid up until selected to be converted into the first specifically designed powership.

SS <i>Admiral Halstead</i>

SS Admiral Halstead was a merchant ship built in 1920 by the Submarine Boat Corporation, Newark, New Jersey, and operating originally as Suwordenco. The ship's history illustrates the state of the industry as the massive World War I shipbuilding program transitioned to an effort to sell and operate hulls in a market glutted by wartime shipbuilding. By the outbreak of World War II Suwordenco was one of the few ships operating as its owners went bankrupt. The ship was bought for operation from the Puget Sound to California ports until it was caught up in the prelude to the United States' entry into the war.

SS <i>Cynthia Olson</i>

SS Cynthia Olson was a cargo ship originally built in Wisconsin in 1918 as the SS Coquina. Renamed in 1940, in August 1941 she was chartered by the US Army to transport supplies to Hawaii. While in passage between Tacoma, Washington and Honolulu on December 7, she was intercepted by the Japanese submarine I-26, which sank her with gunfire. Although the commander of the submarine ensured that all of the crew had escaped into boats, none of them were ever found. Cynthia Olson was the first United States Merchant Marine vessel to be sunk after the entry of the United States into World War II.

SS <i>Managua</i> (1919)

SS Managua was a Nicaraguan cargo ship that the German submarine U-67 torpedoed on 16 June 1942 in the Straits of Florida while she was travelling from Charleston, South Carolina, United States to Havana, Cuba with a cargo of potash. The ship was built as Glorieta, a Design 1049 ship in 1919, operated by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) until sold to the Munson Steamship Line in 1920 and renamed Munisla. The ship was sold foreign to a Honduran company, Garcia, in 1937 and renamed Neptuno. In 1941 the ship was re-flagged in Nicaragua with the name Managua.

Design 1023 ship

The Design 1023 ship was a steel-hulled cargo ship design approved for mass production by the United States Shipping Board's (USSB) Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFC) in World War I. Like many of the early designs approved by the EFC, the Design 1023 did not originate with the EFC itself but was based on an existing cargo ship designed by Theodore E. Ferris for the United States Shipping Board (USSB). The ships, to be built by the Submarine Boat Corporation of Newark, New Jersey, were the first to be constructed under a standardized production system worked out by Ferris and approved by the USSB.

References

  1. 1 2 3 McKellar, Norman L. "Steel Shipbuilding under the U. S. Shipping Board, 1917–1921, Requisitioned Steel Ships, Part II" (PDF). Steel Shipbuilding under the U. S. Shipping Board, 1917–1921. ShipScribe. p. 383b. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  2. ↑ "Sudbury Launched". Weekly Commercial News. Vol. 55, no. 16. October 20, 1917. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  3. ↑ A Souvenir of New York City, Old and New. New York, N.Y.: New York Commercial. p. 300. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  4. 1 2 Fiftieth Annual List of Merchant Vessels of the United States, Year ended June 30, 1918. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of Navigation. 1918. p. 66. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 Construction & Repair Bureau (Navy) (November 1, 1918). Ships' Data U.S. Naval Vessels. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 520–525. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Naval History And Heritage Command. "Sudbury". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History And Heritage Command. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  7. ↑ Hodgkinson, Francis (February 1919). "Progress in Turbine Ship Propulsion". Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers. Vol. 31. p. 199. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  8. ↑ "Shawmut S. S. Company Absorbed by Harriman Interests". The Nautical Gazette. Vol. 99, no. 10. September 4, 1920. p. 301. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  9. ↑ Merchant Vessels of the United States, Year ended June 30, 1926. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation. 1926. pp. 44–45. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  10. ↑ Merchant Vessels of the United States, Year ended June 30, 1928. Washington, D.C.: Department of Commerce, Bureau of Navigation. 1928. pp. 138–139. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  11. ↑ Lloyds. "Lloyd's Register 1937" (PDF). Lloyd's Register (through PlimsollShipData). Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  12. ↑ Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff Admiralty (4 April 1941). "Weekly Intelligence Report, Number 56 — Italian Shipping" (PDF). p. 15. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  13. ↑ "War Cabinet — Weekly Résumé (No. 83) 27 March—3 April" (PDF). 3 April 1941. p. 5. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  14. ↑ Bertke, Donald A.; Kindell, Don; Smith, Gordon (2009). Il Duce Deposed. World War II Sea War. Vol. 10. p. 317. ISBN   9781937470173. LCCN   2010900455 . Retrieved 7 November 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.