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Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive

Watonwan (ID 4296)


Cargo Ship: Built in 1918 by the Merchants' Shipbuilding Corp., Bristol, PA; Acquired by the Navy 4 February 1919 and commissioned the same day at Philadelphia, PA; Decommissioned 14 May 1919, returned to the United States Shipping Board and struck from the Naval Register; Abandoned in 1931.
Fate unknown.

Specifications: Displacement 12,200 t.; Length 417' 9½"; Beam 54' 2"; Depth of hold 32' 10"; Draft 25' 6"; Speed 8.9 kts.; Complement 70; Armament one 4" and one 3".


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Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships History: Watonwan, a single-screw, steel-hulled freighter built in 1918 for the United States Shipping Board (USSB) at Bristol, Pa., by the Merchants' Shipbuilding Co., was taken over by the Navy for use with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), assigned Id. No. 4296, and commissioned at Philadelphia on 4 February 1919, Lt. Comdr. Arnold H. Lewis, USNRF, in command.

After loading 7,087 tons of flour, Watonwan departed Philadelphia on 19 February, bound for the British Isles, and arrived in Falmouth, England, on 5 March. After discharging a part of her cargo there, she departed that port on the 12th and called at Plymouth and Gibraltar before sailing from the latter port on 22 March for Italy. Reaching Genoa on 26 March, the ship discharged the last of her cargo of flour there loaded 1,250 tons of stone ballast, and sailed via Gibraltar for the
United States.

Watonwan tarried briefly at Norfolk, arriving on the 26th and departing the next day, before moving on to New Orleans, La. She arrived there on 8 May and was decommissioned on 14 May. She was simultaneously struck from the Navy list and turned back to the Shipping Board. Laid up in 1923, Watonwan was eventually abandoned, due to age and deterioration, in 1931.


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