USS Western Chief (ID-3161) in a European port in 1919.
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History | |
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United States | |
Name | USS Western Chief |
Builder | Northwest Steel Company, Portland, Oregon |
Launched | 20 April 1918 |
Completed | 1918 |
Acquired | 3 July 1918 |
Commissioned | 3 July 1918 |
Decommissioned | 28 June 1919 |
Stricken | 28 June 1919 |
Fate | Returned to U.S. Shipping Board 28 June 1919 |
Notes |
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General characteristics | |
Type | Cargo ship |
Displacement | 12,185 tons |
Length | 423 ft 9 in (129.16 m) |
Beam | 54 ft 0 in (16.46 m) |
Draft | 24 ft 2 in (7.37 m) (mean) |
Depth | 29 ft 9 in (9.07 m) |
Propulsion | One 2,500-ihp (1.864-mW) steam engine, one shaft |
Speed | 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph) |
Complement | 99 |
Armament |
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USS Western Chief (ID-3161) was a cargo ship of the United States Navy that served during World War I and its immediate aftermath. As SS Western Chief, she was sunk during World War II after being sold to the United Kingdom for use as a merchant ship.
Western Chief was laid down as the steel-hulled, single-screw commercial cargo ship SS Western Chief by the Northwest Steel Company in Portland, Oregon, for the Compagnie Générale of France under a United States Shipping Board contract. She was launched on 20 April 1918. The Shipping Board transferred her to the U.S. Navy at Portland on 3 July 1918 for use during World War I. Assigning her the naval registry identification number 3161, the Navy commissioned her at Portland on 3 July 1918 as USS Western Chief (ID-3161).[1]
Western Chief was decommissioned, struck from the Navy list, and transferred back to the U.S. Shipping Board on 28 June 1919.[2]
Once again SS Western Chief, the ship was in mercantile service from 1919.
Early in World War II, the British government purchased Western Chief to help to alleviate the shipping shortage the United Kingdom faced due to losses to Axis submarines. In British service, Western Chief was on a voyage, under Captain Eric Alexander Brown, Master with Hogarth's shipowners, as a part of Convoy SC 24 when she was sunk at 13:07 on 14 March 1941 by the Italian submarine Emo in the North Atlantic Ocean 250 nautical miles (463 km) south of Iceland at 58°52′N 21°13′W / 58.867°N 21.217°W.[3]