America

U.S.S. America

3006

1917

(Carlo Marquadt CM-P-52)

Class: 1 transport of 1917
Displacement: 22,622 grt
Dimensions: 700 x 74 x 32 ft
Machinery: 2-shaft, steam quadruple expansion engines, 16,500 ihp = 18 knots
Armament: 4-6in
Complement: 994

Builder: Harland & Wolff, Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1905
Acquired: 25 Jul 1917
Commissioned: 6 Aug 1917
Decommissioned: 26 Sep 1919

Service: Built as Hamburg America liner SS Amerika, with capacity for 420 1st class, 254 2nd clss, 233 3rd class, and 1,765 steerage. Largest ship in the world for one year, sailing primarily between Hamburg and New York. On 4 Oct 1912 she rammed and sank the British submarine B 2. First voyage to Boston Jun 1914.
At the outset of WW1 she was docked at Boston and chose to remain in port rather than risk seizure by the British Royal Navy. After three years in port, and just hours before American entry into WW1, she was seized and placecd under control of the United States Shipping Board (USSB). Transferred to the US Navy for use as a troop transport in Oct 1917 and renamed USS America (ID-3006), she carried almost 40,000 troops to France. On 14 Jul 1918 she collided with the British steamer Instructor which subsequently sank. In Oct 1918 America sank at her mooring in Hoboken due to bad trimming when taking on coal, but was raised and sent back into service. After the Armistice, she transported more than 51,000 troops back home.
Postwar she was temporarily with the US Army as USAT America, then with the United States Mail Steamship Company, and by Aug 1921 with United States Lines, plying the North Atlantic between New York and Bremerhaven. Suffered a serious fire in 1926, but rebuilt and back in service the next year, she sailed until Apr 1931, when she was laid up in Chesapeake Bay for nine years.
Reactivated in Oct 1940 for the US Army, subsequently renamed USAT Edmund B. Alexander in 1941. Served as a barracks ship at St. Johns, Newfoundland, before being refitted in 1942 as a troopship, including conversion to oil fuel and removal of one funnel. Sailed initially on a New Orleans to Panama route, but later on the North Atlantic run. Postwar she carried military dependents up to 1949 before being placed in reserve at Baltimore. Scrapped in 1957.