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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images -- Picture Data

Photo #: NH 82654 (extended caption)

USS Louisiana (Battleship # 19)

Arrives at New York City with a load of troops from France, 1919. The tug Excelsior (closest to camera) is among those assisting her into her berth.
Photo printed on a stereograph card, published by the Keystone View Company.
See below for the text printed on the original stereograph card's reverse side, concerning World War I trans-Atlantic logistics accomplishments.

Courtesy of Commander Donald J. Robinson, USN(MSC), 1975

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 95KB; 6250 x 675 pixels

A stereo pair version of this image is available as Photo # NH 82654-A

Online Image of stereo pair: 62KB; 675 x 360 pixels

 

Text printed on the reverse of the original stereograph card:

U.S. Battleships Serve as Transports in Bringing Our Troops Home

The participation of the United States in the World War was one of the most tremendously dramatic episodes in all history. Such an achievement as the transportation of more than two million armed men, with all their vast paraphernalia of warfare, across 3,000 miles of ocean, was never dreamed before. It was, in very truth, "The Great Crusade," and such accomplishments as the voyaging of the early Crusaders to the Holy Land in the Middle Ages was dwarfed by comparison with it.
Between May, 1917, and November, 1918, a period of 18 months, 2,025,000 men were carried to France, and between November, 1918, and August, 1919, a period of 10 months, all but 133,000 of them had been carried home again.
Meantime, for the supply of our army in Europe, nearly 7,500,000 tons of cargo were carried over from the United States between June, 1917, and April, 1919. Included in these shipments were 1,791 locomotives of 100 tons each, 26994 standard gauge freight cars, and 47,018 motor trucks, while, above the tonnage mentioned, there were shipped 68,694 head of horses and mules.
In spite of the great efforts of the German submarines, only 380 American lives and 200,000 tons of shipping out of the total 2,700,000 deadweight tons of the American cargo fleet, were lost through the action of submarines, and not one American troop transport was lost on its way to Europe, thanks to the watchfulness and efficiency of our Navy.

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5 June 2001