Point Bonita, a 2675 gross ton (4075 tons displacement) freighter built at Portland, Oregon, was completed in June 1918. Commissioned in the Navy on 7 October 1918 as USS Point Bonita (ID # 3496), she sailed in mid-October with a convoy for Nantes, France, arrived there in early November and returned to New York in mid-December. The ship then loaded a partial cargo for the U.S. Shipping Board before moving to Norfolk, Virginia, to load coal for the use of Naval ships operating in the Hawaiian area. Sailing in early January 1919, she delivered her cargo at Pearl Harbor in February and returned to New York at the end of March. Point Bonita was decommissioned there on 7 April 1919 and returned to the Shipping Board.
Reentering merchant service in 1919 as S.S. Point Bonita, she was renamed San Pedro in 1923 and Oliver Olson in 1937. After more than two decades in the Merchant Marine, the ship again had Naval service during World War II as USS Camanga (AG-42). Placed in commission on 25 April 1942, she was employed as a cargo carrier in the South Pacific for the next three and a half years. Camanga was decommissioned in December 1945. Resuming commercial service in 1946 as Oliver Olson, she ran aground off Bandon, Oregon, in November 1953 and was scrapped at Napa, California, in 1954.
This page features the only views we have concerning the American freighter Point Bonita, USS Point Bonita (ID # 3496), USS Camanga (AG-42), S.S. San Pedro, and S.S. Oliver Olson.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 24 November 2007