USS Mongolia

Discussion in 'World War 1' started by liverpool annie, Jan 4, 2009.

  1. liverpool annie

    liverpool annie New Member

    Mongolia was owned and operated by the Pacific Mail Steam Ship Company and had a capacity of 1,818 passengers. She was built in 1903 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. Her speed was 16 kn and she had a displacement of 26,700 tons. She was 616 feet in length and her beam was 65 feet. Her Sister ship was the SS Manchuria. She was built for the San Francisco-Honolulu-Hongkong service. Mongolia went aground on the western side of Midway Island on September 16, 1906, but succeeded in getting off again even before the arrival of the ships Buford, Iroquois, and Restorer, which went to her aid from Honolulu.

    In 1915 when the Allies were in such great need of ship tonnage to carry food and munitions across the Atlantic, she was bought by the Atlantic Transport Line and made the passage around Cape Horn in December of 1915. She was then operated between New York and London. When the Imperial German Government placed into effect the famous submarine blockade in March of 1917, the Mongolia was armed with three six-inch guns manned by 2 crew of one officer and twenty-two enlisted men. She was the first ship to sail after the Kaiser's proclamation of the barred zone, and on April 19, 1917, the Mongolia encountered and engaged a German submarine in the English Channel, seven miles southeast of Beachy Head, which apparently ended disastrously for the submarine. This was the first American shot fired on the high seas after the declaration of war. The Mongolia completed the first trip to France and back in twenty-eight days, covering a distance of 7,006 miles.

    In March of 1918 she was chartered by the U. S. Army to carry supplies. On April 29, 1918,she was taken over by the U.S. Navy and fitted out as a troop ship. On May 26, 1918, having taken on a full load of troops she proceeded to the rendezvous to await the assembling of the convoy, and later got under way in company with the Henderson, Siboney, America, Mallory, Tenedores, Mercury and Huron, with the Cruiser North Carolina and Von Steuben as escort.

    In 1917 she became an armoured troopship for the US Navy. When the United States entered WW I on April 6, 1917 there were 403 Army nurses on active duty including 170 reserve nurses who had been assigned to duty with Gen. John J. Pershing's 1916 expedition on the Mexican border. One month later on 8-19 May 1917, six base hospitals with more than 400 Army nurses sailed on 5 transport ships for France for service with the British Expeditionary Forces. Edith Ayers and Helen Wood, nurses with Base Hospital 12 from Chicago, were killed en route when a ship’s gun exploded aboard their transport ship, the USS Mongolia.

    http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cacunithistories/USS_Mongolia.html
     

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