Kroonland
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The Kroonland was a transatlantic passenger steamer put into service in 1902 by the Belgian-American shipping company Red Star Line , which was used in passenger traffic from Antwerp to New York . During the First World War , the ship served from February 18, 1918 under the designation USAT Kroonland as a troop transport for the United States Army and from April 22, 1918 as USS Kroonland (ID-1541) for the United States Navy . After the war, the ship resumed its passenger service under the name Kroonland until it was decommissioned in 1927 and scrapped in Italy .
Construction and equipment
In July 1899, the Philadelphia-based shipping group International Navigation Company announced the construction of four new ocean liners for North Atlantic traffic . Two of them, the two 11,000-tonne Zeeland and Vaderland , were built at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank near Glasgow and the other two, the Kroonland and the Finland , were shortly afterwards on Kiel at William Cramp and Sons in Philadelphia (USA) placed. All four ships were planned for the Red Star Line, which was part of the International Navigation Company. It was the first newbuildings for the Red Star Line in over ten years.
With 12,760 GRT each, the Finland and Kroonland , both of which were made of steel, were the largest ships of the Red Star Line until then. At the time of their launch, they were the largest passenger ships under construction at an American shipyard and the largest civilian ships built by William Cramp and Sons up to that point.
The 170.69 meter long and 18.35 meter wide Kroonland had two chimneys, four masts and two propellers . She was equipped with two three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines that developed 5,100 PSi and could help the ship to a top speed of 17 knots. The planned average cruising speed was 15 knots. The ship was equipped with nine single-end steam boilers that were fired with coal. The hull was divided into twelve watertight compartments by eleven bulkheads and had a double floor . Up to 11,000 tons of freight and provisions could be stowed in the loading and cargo holds.
The passenger capacity was 342 passengers in the first, 194 in the second and 626 in the third class. The first class passenger accommodations were on the higher decks . The first class dining room was on the upper deck between the two chimneys and took up the entire breadth of the ship. The hall, which was furnished with mahogany furniture and paneled with silk wood panels, could seat 208 people. It was crowned by a skylight that also took up the entire width of the deck. The 20 steel lifeboats of the Kroonland were moored on the boat deck . The library and the first-class smoking room were located on the promenade deck below .
Use as a passenger ship
The Kroonland was launched as the first of the two sister ships on February 20, 1902 and was christened by Mrs. Anna Starr Griscom, wife of the banker, businessman and director of the Western Savings Fund Society of Philadelphia, Rodman Ellison Griscom. However, the ship did not move down the ramp at first because it was frozen due to the icy weather. Only with the help of large hydraulic jacks did the Kroonland finally slide into the Delaware River .
On June 28, 1902, she left New York on her maiden voyage to Antwerp . When the rudder failed in early December 1903 in stormy weather about 140 miles west of the Fastnet rock , the crew of the Kroonland reported the emergency situation via wireless radio . Contemporary press reports stated that the Kroonland was the first ship to call for help by radio. She headed for Queenstown on the southern Irish coast for repairs , where she handed over her passengers to Teutonic and her cargo to the Bovic , both ships of the White Star Line . Three years later, there was another premiere when the Kroonland radio operator on December 24, 1906, more or less by chance, received the first radio transmission broadcast by radio pioneer Reginald Fessenden from Massachusetts .
The Kroonland , like the Finland , sailed under the American flag in the first few years until it was registered in Antwerp on November 6, 1908 and came under the Belgian flag. In May 1910, the Kroonland was officially named World Missionary Conference Steamship, as it brought the delegates of the 1910 World Missionary Conference to Edinburgh . From January 13, 1912, the ship sailed again under the American flag. In April 1912, the American writer Theodore Dreiser wanted to return to the USA on board the RMS Titanic after an extended stay in Europe . But he decided at the last moment for the Kroonland and afterwards described the depressed mood on board after the news of the sinking of the Titanic had become known. On the next crossing to New York, the Kroonland had the German spy Horst von der Goltz on board, who had been hired as a steward to escape the German authorities.
On August 1, 1914, the Kroonland made her last crossing from Antwerp to New York via Dover for the time being , as she was relocated to the Liverpool- New York route two weeks later . After only two crossings on this route, she ran out on October 15, 1914 for a tour from New York to Gibraltar , Naples and Piraeus . From May 21, 1915, the Kroonland was chartered to the Panama Pacific Line for their service from New York to San Francisco via the Panama Canal , as the International Mercantile Marine Company , to which the Red Star Line belonged, signed a contract after the opening of the canal American Post was closed.
The Finland was also used for this from May 1915. In February 1915, the Kroonland had already used the Panama Canal for a one-time charter trip for the first time. She was the largest ship to date that had passed through the canal, which had only opened the year before. Until January 30, 1916, the Kroonland was then integrated in the London-New York service of the American Line. From February 20, 1916, the steamer again served the route Liverpool – New York. The last crossing began on January 31, 1917.
Incidents and accidents
In December 1904, the ship was hit by a monster wave in the middle of the North Atlantic , which, according to eyewitness reports, is said to have reached the top of the chimneys. There were at least two injured. In December 1907 one of the two waves broke again in an Atlantic storm when the Kroonland was near the Isles of Scilly . With the help of the still intact shaft, the steamer made it to Southampton on its own . There the passengers were transferred to the Majestic of the White Star Line, while the Kroonland remained in the dry dock in Southampton for repairs . On January 2, 1908, she arrived back in New York after completing the repair work.
In April 1911, the Kroonland ran aground on the breakwaters in the port of Dover and on January 8, 1913, shortly after leaving New York, she stranded in thick fog in the Ambrose Channel. Tugboats took more than six hours to free the ocean liner from the mud.
On October 10, 1913, the Kroonland was one of the first ships to respond to the emergency calls from the passenger steamer Volturno , which had caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic . Despite the stormy weather and rough seas, she saved a total of 90 people from the burning ship. During the rescue operation, she almost collided with the French passenger ship La Touraine . For his brave efforts, the captain of the Kroonland , Paul H. Kreibohm, was awarded the Belgian Crown Order , the Golden Medal of Honor of the Congress , the American Cross of Honor and the Sea Gallantry Medal.
Troop transport
Since Germany so far in the war unrestricted for the second time on February 1, 1917 submarine warfare had declared that was Kroon Country along with Finland and three other ships for about three months at the piers of the American Line in New York launched . During this compulsory break, there was a switch from coal to fuel combustion, which had been planned since October 1915. In early March 1917, the ship was inspected by officers of the United States Navy and armed in the following days in order to be able to defend itself against submarine attacks. On May 20, 1917, she was hit by a torpedo near Liverpool , but it did not detonate.
On October 15, 1917, the United States Shipping Board (USSB) decreed that all American passenger ships with a tonnage of over 2500 tons should be made available to the US government for use in the war. In February 1918 the ship was equipped with the appropriate armament and from April 1918 it officially served as a troop transport for the United States Army with the identification USAT Kroonland (United States Army Transport) . The second and third class cabins were completely dismantled and replaced with dormitories. In addition, more sanitary and cooking facilities had to be created for the large number of men.
Only a few days later, on April 22, 1918, the Kroonland was handed over to the United States Navy , as Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves ordered all troop ships to be manned by members of the US Navy. From then on, the ship was called USS Kroonland (ID-1541) and was commissioned with troop transports from New York to France until November 1918 . It carried a total of 14,125 soldiers on five crossings. After the end of the First World War, it brought American troops back to the USA and carried 26,152 people on eight crossings.
After the war
After the end of the war, the Kroonland was returned to the parent company International Mercantile Marine and completely renovated in the W. & A. Fletcher Marine Works in Hoboken . The new passenger accommodations were designed for 242 passengers in the first, 310 in the second and 876 in the third class. On January 8, 1920, when the rearmament was still in full swing, the American liner St. Louis burned down in the dock next to her . Since the fire crews saw the St. Louis as lost, they directed their efforts to the Kroonland .
In April 1920 the Kroonland , which was again handed over to the management of the Red Star Line, resumed its old liner service between Antwerp and New York. She operated this route together with Finland and the younger Lapland until January 1923 . In June 1920, the US delegates from the International Chamber of Commerce traveled to Paris for a meeting on board the Kroonland , including Myron T. Herrick and Paul Moritz Warburg .
On November 12, 1920, after leaving Antwerp on the Scheldt , she collided with a tug, killing two of the tug's crew. In September 1921, four of the seven American members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union returned to New York from a conference in Stockholm with the Kroonland . On June 10, 1922, the New York Times reported that Kroonland's chief steward , Charles Simmons, had been found dead in his cabin. The coroner believed Simmons had been dead three or four days.
At the beginning of 1923, the ship was subjected to renewed modifications, as a result of which the previous three-class system was switched to only cabin class and third class. After this modernization, the Kroonland made three crossings for the American Line from New York to Hamburg with stops in Plymouth and Cherbourg . On October 18, 1923, the ship set off on its first voyage for the Panama Pacific Line from New York to San Francisco and Los Angeles since 1915. When she entered the port of Los Angeles on November 3, 1923 , what made her the largest ship to date to have sailed into the port.
In December 1924, the Panama Pacific Line announced that the Mongolia , a former passenger ship of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company , would replace the Kroonland on the New York – California route from February 1925. From December 1925 to March 1926 the Kroonland was used by the American Line in the booming passenger service from New York to Miami and carried 11,000 passengers in this short time, including the golf professional Gene Sarazen . The American Line announced that the Kroonland would return to the route in the coming season, but these plans were ultimately not implemented. The Florida real estate market collapsed in mid-1926, and on September 18 of that year, Miami was devastated by a major hurricane . Without any further use for the old ship, it was initially laid up in Hoboken.
After being sold to Italy for demolition, the Kroonland ran for the last time in New York on January 29, 1927. The cargo was unloaded in Antwerp and on March 21, 1927 it arrived in Genoa , where it was scrapped. According to the Associated Press , the Kroonland had made a total of 234 crossings in peacetime, covering 1,635,468 nautical miles.
