Return to Naval Historical Center home page. Return to Online Library listing

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

Photo #  NH 65053-A:  SS West Hobomac underway during trials, off Seattle, Washington, 17 August 1918


Online Library of Selected Images:
-- CIVILIAN SHIPS --

West Hobomac (American Freighter, 1918)
Served as USS West Hobomac (ID # 3335) in 1918-1919

West Hobomac, a 6086 gross ton freighter, was built during World War I at Seattle, Washington. She was taken over by the Navy upon completion in mid-August 1918 and placed in commission as USS West Hobomac (ID # 3335). She soon left on her maiden voyage, carrying coal from Portland, Oregon, to Iquique, Chile, where she loaded a shipment of nitrates and took it, via the Panama Canal, to New York City. She arrived there a few days before the 11 November 1918 Armistice ended the fighting. Late in the month West Hobomac began her initial voyage across the Atlantic, taking U.S. Army supplies to Brest, France. She returned to New York early in February 1919 and made a second trans-Atlantic round-trip, this time to Rotterdam, starting in late February. The ship's third trip to and from Europe, carrying a cargo of food to Antwerp, Belgium, took place in April-June.

USS West Hobomac was decommissioned upon her return from that voyage and turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board. She subsequently had a long commercial career. She was renamed Ile De Batz in 1940 and thereafter operated as part of the British shipping fleet. The ship was sunk off the west coast of Africa by the German submarine U-68 on 17 March 1942.

This page features our only view of the freighter West Hobomac , which was USS West Hobomac (ID # 3335) in 1918-1919.


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.

Photo #: NH 65053-A

West Hobomac
(American Freighter, 1918)

Photographed by her builder, the Skinner & Eddy Corporation of Seattle, Washington, while on trials off Seattle on 17 August 1918.
This ship was acquired by the Navy on the day of her trials and placed in commission as USS West Hobomac (ID # 3335). She was returned to the U.S. Shipping Board on 10 June 1919.
Note her pattern camouflage.

The original print is in National Archives' Record Group 19-LCM.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 72KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

Page made 8 February 2004