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Identification Numbered Vessel Photo Archive

Cape Henry (ID 3056)



Civilian call sign:
Love - King - Rush - George
Freighter:

  • Built in 1918 as War Dolphin by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., Sparrows Point, MD for the British government
  • Order canceled, transferred to the United States Shipping Board (USSB) and renamed Cape Henry
  • Launched 30 March 1918
  • Delivered 22 May 1918
  • Acquired by the Navy 26 October 1918 and commissioned USS Cape Henry (ID 3056) the same day
  • Decommissioned 3 March 1919 at New York and returned to the USSB for return to her owners, the Mallory Steamship Co.
  • Sold in 1920 to the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Steamship Corp. of Baltimore, MD
  • Repossessed by the USSB in 1922
  • Renamed Dorothy at some point in the next two and a half decades, the former Cape Henry was transferred to Honduran registry in 1951
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 10,505 t.
  • Length 391' 9¼"
  • Beam 52'
  • Draft 23' 10½"
  • Speed 11 kts.
  • Complement 62
  • Armament: One 6"/50 mount and one 6-pounder
  • Propulsion: Three single ended boilers, one 2,500ihp vertical triple expansion steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Cape Henry 445k 30 March 1918
    Prior to launching
    National Archives photo 165-WW 499 104 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation    		 Mike Mohl
    Photo added 17 October 2020
    Cape Henry 61k Composite photograph, taken circa October 1918, while the ship was in the final stages of fitting out at the Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard, Sparrows Point, Maryland
    U.S. Navy photo NH 99879    		 Naval Historical Center
    Cape Henry 93k c. 1921
    Photo from an advertisement of the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Steamship Corp.    		 Joe Radigan
    West Haven 107k Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific Steamship Corp. advertisement for Cape Henry, ex-ID-3056; West Haven, ex-ID-2159 and Liberator, ex-ID-3134 from the 31 May 1921 edition of the Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, PA Tommy Trampp
    View the Cape Henry (ID 3056)
    DANFS history entry located on the Naval History and Heritage Command website
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