Wasgenwald (ship, 1912)
 The Wasgenwald as Shoshone
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The Wasgenwald was the second steamer built by the Bremer Vulkan for the West India / Central America service of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag). She was one of a series of four steamers ordered at German shipyards for this Hapag service, the type of which was the Grunewald , which was also built at Bremer Vulkan .
The ship, which has been in service with Hapag in the West Indies / Central America since March 1912, was launched on August 6, 1914 in Saint Thomas , then Danish , and sold in 1916 to the US shipping company Kerr, which returned to service as Shoshone in 1917 . After serving in the US Navy, the ship was sold to Canada in 1920 and renamed Manoa .
In 1926, the former Wasgenwald was bought back by Hapag, which started up its routes to the West Indies as Grunewald with a new passenger facility.
In 1932 the ship was canceled in Germany.
Building history
In 1907, Hapag first used three ships whose names ended in forest . These were three freighters with small passenger facilities, which Hapag bought from its Danish partner Det Østasiatiske Kompagni when they took over their West India liner service. They were given the names Niederwald , Odenwald and Sachsenwald .
In 1908 three more ships were added for the shipping area, which were bought from the Furness Shipbuilding Company in Hartlepool and came into service as the Westerwald , Spreewald and Frankenwald .
The third series of combined ships for the West India / Central America service was ordered in 1911. The Bremer Vulkan supplied the type ship Grunewald and the Wasgenwald , the Schichau in Danzig built the Black Forest and the Flensburger SchiffbauG , which had already built two of the former Danish ships, supplied the Steigerwald .
The Wasgenwald , which was launched in December 1911 , was delivered to Hapag at the end of February 1912 and began its journeys from Hamburg to Central America in March 1912. Like all ten Hapag forest ships, she remained in service on the lines to the Caribbean until the outbreak of war, but was most recently used primarily as a pure freighter.
The Wasgenwald was launched when the war broke out in St. Thomas , which was then Danish . When a hurricane struck the island on October 9, 1916 , the Wasgenwald almost sank. Since the maintenance of the Hapag ships in the Caribbean ports became more and more difficult in the third year of the war, Hapag was looking for ways to sell some of the ships, although some had already been agreed to buy them back. So she sold the ship lying in the Danish West Indies to the American shipping company Kerr Navigation Co. before March 31, 1917, when the Danish colony became the US Virgin Islands through sale to the USA .
Under the American flag
Kerr Navigation renamed the ship Shoshone and formed an operating company. In October 1917, the shipping company rented the Shoshone to the US Army . After being checked by the US Navy , it was given the number ID 1760 and was used with a civilian crew as a freighter to supply American troops.
In 1919 she came under the command of the US Navy for the repatriation of American troops. It was one of the smallest of around 45 freighters that were converted into troop transports and participated in this task. Commissioned by a reserve officer in Shooters Island, NY, on February 18, 1919, she began her first of two repatriation voyages on May 1 from the Army's Bush Terminal in Brooklyn after a brief dry dock and some repairs . On May 14th she reached St. Nazaire in France, from where she ran back to Philadelphia on the 17th. The Shoshone , who arrived on June 1, ran out again for France on the 5th, where this time she had to wait two weeks outside St. Nazaire before she could take troops on board again. On July 1, she was able to take over her contingent, with which she carried out the return trip to Bush Bluffs (Virginia) from the 2nd to the 16th . On August 5, 1919, the Shoshone was discharged from the Navy at Bush Bluffs and returned to Kerr Navigation Co.
In Canadian service
In 1919, Kerr sold the former Wasgenwald to Canada Steamship Co. , which renamed it Manoa , after a fabulous golden city in British Guiana . The Canadian shipping company started using the former German ship for the West Indies from September 1919. In May 1920 she was assigned to the shipping company's joint service with the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique between Montreal and Le Havre , which ended in Saint John (New Brunswick) in winter . This connection, known as the “Fracanda Line”, was discontinued in January 1921 after it opened in April 1919. The Manoa had carried out three tours in this service and transported emigrants to Canada.
On June 11, 1921, the Manoa started a new service that the shipping company had already operated for a short time in 1915. They offered a 17-day round trip from Montreal via Gaspé and Charlottetown to St. John's (Newfoundland) . By the end of September, the ship should make seven such voyages along the southern bank of the St. Lawrence River . Due to the strong demand, two more trips were made in October and one trip was also offered in November. After that, the ship should make cruises south.
In 1922 the stop in Gaspé was abandoned and the travel time was shortened to 14 days. In 1923, losses occurred in this service for the first time. Nevertheless, the service was strengthened in 1924 by a freighter departing in between. At the end of the summer the Manoa was replaced by the freighter Lisgar County of 2816 GRT.
In June 1926 the Canada Steamship Lines sold the Manoa to the Boston Iron & Metal Co for demolition. The American company sold the ship to the original owner, Hapag.
The second Grunewald
The re-acquired Wasgenwald had to be given a new name at Hapag, as the Hamburg shipping company had had a number of new buildings built at Deutsche Werft using the pre-war names since 1921 . The eighth ship in this series with hull number 41, which came into service in 1923, was named Wasgenwald .
The repurchased ship was renamed Grunewald in June 1926 , the only pre-war name not used again until then, after the type ship that came into service in 1912 and was still in service in the USA as Munorleans . After the renovation, Hapag's second Grunewald was used as a combination ship of 3917 GRT with a passenger facility for 31 passengers to Central America, alongside the motor ships of the Horn Line . On May 8, 1928, the Grunewald opened a new Hapag "island service" from Hamburg via Bremen and Antwerp to Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica, which was mainly served by cargo ships.
In December 1932 the Grunewald ex Wasgenwald was sold for demolition and scrapped in Hamburg in 1933.
The second Wasgenwald of 4990 GRT was confiscated by the Dutch colonial authorities in Sabang in 1940. It was commissioned by the Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (SMN) as Sembilangan in 1940. On March 13, 1943 she was torpedoed west of Cape Finisterre by U 107 in convoy OS-44 and sank with 86 men (one survivor).
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Vol. III Abrupt growth 1900 to 1914. Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 20.
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping. Vol. IV Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930. Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 21.
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918. Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- Shoshone (American Passenger-Cargo Steamer, 1911) Naval History and Heritage Command
- Shoshone (ID 1760) on NavSource Online: Section Patrol Craft Photo Archive
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Kludas, Vol III, p. 130
- ↑ Business conduct between Kerr / Harriman / Hapag
- ^ The Montreal Gazette - June 29, 1921
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. IV, pp. 155f.
- ↑ Sinking the Sembilangan on uboat.net with picture