USS Cap Finisterre, a 14,503 gross ton troop transport, was built at Hamburg, Germany, in 1911 as the Hamburg Sud Amerika company passenger liner of the same name. She spent the First World War in Germany and was transferred to the United States under the terms of the Armistice agreement. Placed in commission by the U.S. Navy in April 1919 she made four voyages between Brest, France, and New York, carrying war veterans home to the United States and occupation troops to Europe. Cap Finisterre completed her final trip in mid-August 1919 and then spent several months at the New York Navy Yard. Decommissioned in late November 1919, she was turned over to the U.S. Shipping Board at that time.
In 1920, Cap Finisterre was transferred to Japan as part of the German war reparations owed to that nation. Renamed Taiyo Maru, she was operated for more than two decades by a variety of shipping lines. On 8 May 1942, while serving as a transport for the Japanese Army, S.S. Taiyo Maru was torpedoed and sunk by USS Grenadier (SS-210).
This page features the only views we have concerning USS Cap Finisterre (ID # 4051) and the S.S. Cap Finisterre and Taiyo Maru.
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NOTES:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 24 September 2003
New image added 26 December 2010