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NavSource Online:
Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive

Rambler (SP 211)

Patrol Yacht:

  • Built in 1900 by Lewis Nixon, Elizabethport, NJ
  • Acquired by the Navy 16 August 1917
  • Commissioned 18 October 1917
  • Decommissioned 9 July 1919 at New York, NY
  • Struck from the Naval Register 27 August 1919
  • Sold 16 September 1919
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 288 t.
  • Length 177'
  • Beam 23'
  • Draft 11' 6"
  • Speed 13 kts.
  • Compliment 69
  • Armament: Two 3"/50 mounts and two machine guns
  • Propulsion: Two Seabury boilers, one 800hp vertical triple-expansion steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Yacht Rambler
    Rambler 82k In a harbor, prior to World War I
    U.S. Navy photo NH 99684    		 Naval Historical Center
    USS Rambler (SP 211)
    Rambler 21k Photo from Naval-History.net Robert Hurst
    Rambler 132k View on the ship's fantail, showing her after 3"/50 gun and depth charges on racks and a "Y-gun" thrower, taken at Brest, France, 1918. USS Bridgeport (ID 3009) is in the background, with two destroyers tied up to starboard.
    Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1970.
    U.S. Navy photo NH 73255    		 Naval History and Heritage Command
    Rambler 114k Ship's forward 3"/50 gun in action, while she was operating off Brest at Pallice, France, on convoy escort duty, 1918
    Original photograph was taken by Robert W. Neeser
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 41865    		 Bill Gonyo
    Rambler 140k Ship's forward 3"/50 gun in action, while she was operating off Brest at Pallice, France, on convoy escort duty, 1918
    Original photograph was taken by Robert W. Neeser
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 41866    		 Robert Hurst
    Commanding Officers
    01LCDR Reuben K. Dyer, NNV (later USNRF)18 October 1917
    021st LT Thomas M. Malloy, USCG - Awarded the Navy Cross (1920)1918
    031st LT Earl G. Rose, USCG - Made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor of France (1919), awarded the Navy Cross (1920) and the Legion of Merit (1945) - Retired as Rear Admiral16 September 1918 - December 1918
    Courtesy Joe Radigan
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Rambler (SP-211), a yacht built in 1900 by Lewis Nixon, Elizabethport, N.J., was acquired by the Navy 16 August 1917 from Kenneth Van Riper, New York, N.Y., and commissioned at New York on 18 October 1917, Lt. Comdr. R. K. Dyer, National Naval Volunteers, in command.

    Rambler sailed for the Azores 4 November and operated with the patrol detachment there until February 1918. Then transferred to the French coast, the armed yacht operated out of Brest, on patrol and escort duty, for the remainder of World War I.

    After the Armistice, Rambler remained in European waters and into the spring of 1919 carried mail and passengers between British and French ports. On 20 May she got underway for the United States and arrived at New York late in June. She was decommissioned 9 July 1919, was struck from the Navy list 27 August, and was sold to J. M. Scott of New York City, 16 September 1919.

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