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Identification Numbered Vessel Photo Archive

Cape Romain (ID 2970)



Civilian call sign:
Love - King - Watch - Dog
Cape Romain Class Freighter:

  • Built in 1918 as War Mercury by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Sparrows Point, MD
  • Launched 4 May 1918
  • Renamed Cape Romain prior to completion
  • Acquired by the Navy 25 June 1918 and commissioned USS Cape Romain (ID 2970) the same day
  • Decommissioned 3 March 1919 at New York and transferred to the United States Shipping Board (USSB)
  • Sold in 1920 to the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Steamship Corp. of Baltimore, MD
  • Repossessed by the USSB in 1922
  • Sold in 1929 to the A. H. Bull Steamship Co. of New York and renamed Emilia
  • Sold in 1951 to the Basile Shipping Co. of Honduras and renamed Isabel
  • Sold in 1953 to Cia Comercial y Financiera Sudamericana of Panama and renamed Rosalind
  • Sold in 1956 to Overseas Enterprise, Inc. of Panama
  • Foundered in bad weather 2 March 1956 in the Mediterranean Sea off the northern coast of Egypt at 33° 21' N., 27° 50' E.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 10,505 t.
  • Length 391' 9"
  • Beam 52'
  • Draft 23' 11"
  • Speed 11 kts.
  • Complement 52
  • Armament: One 6" and one 3" mount
  • Propulsion: Two Scotch boilers, one 2,800ihp reciprocating steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    SS Cape Romain
    Cape Romain 100k c. 1921
    Photo from an advertisement of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Steamship Corp.    		 Joe Radigan
    SS Emilia
    Cape Romain 41k c. April 1937
    From W. A. Taylor & Co.
    15 Laight St.
    New York City

    "The first official shipment arrives. Government House rum reaches American soil when it is unloaded from the S.S. Emilia at the Bull Line pier in Brooklyn. The official first shipment contained 9000 cases. More than 500,000 gallons of this pure cane-juice product is aging in charred white-oak casks in Christiansted, St. Croix. The first of it was produced in the Spring of 1934. Government House is manufactured under Department of the Interior Supervision by the Virgin Islands Company, a PWA project."

    		 Tommy Trampp
    Cape Romain 57k Emilia, underway while in the service of the A.H. Bull Steamship Co., of New York
    R. W. Jordan Collection photo advertisement from "The World's Merchant Fleets 1939", by Roger W Jordan    		 Robert Hurst
    View the Cape Romain (ID 2970)
    DANFS history entry located on the Naval History and Heritage Command website
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