SS St. Louis (1894)

For other ships of the same name, see List of ships named SS St. Louis, USS St. Louis, and USS Louisville

St. Louis seen off New York in 1900.
History
United States
Name	St. Louis
Owner	International Navigation Company
Operator	American Line
Route	New York City–Southampton New York City–Liverpool
Builder	William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia
Yard number	277
Launched	12 November 1894
In service	1895
Out of service	1918
Homeport	New York City
Fate	Destroyed by fire, January 1920 Scrapped, 1925
United States
Name	USS St. Louis
Commissioned	24 April 1898
Decommissioned	2 September 1898
Fate	Returned to owners, 1898
United States
Name	USS Louisville
Acquired	17 April 1918
Commissioned	24 April 1918
Decommissioned	9 September 1919
Fate	Returned to owners, 1919. Scrapped 1924
General characteristics
Type	Passenger ship / Auxiliary cruiser / Troopship
Displacement	14,910 long tons (15,149 t)
Length	554 ft (169 m)
Beam	63 ft (19 m)
Draft	30 ft (9.1 m)
Speed	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement	377
Armament	In 1898 : 4 × 5 in (130 mm) rapid fire guns 8 × 6-pounder guns In 1918 : 3 × 6 in (150 mm) guns
Service record
Operations:	Spanish–American War Battle of Santiago de Cuba World War I Action of 30 May 1917

SS St. Louis was a passenger liner built in 1894 and sponsored by the wife of U.S. President Grover Cleveland. She entered merchant service in 1895, operating between New York and Southampton, England. St. Louis was registered in the United States and owned by the International Navigation Company of New York City. She was acquired by the U.S. Navy during both the Spanish–American War (when she was renamed USS St. Louis) and World War I (when she was renamed USS Louisville). After the ship reverted to its original name in 1919, she caught fire and was scrapped in Genoa in 1924.

Service history

Quadruple expansion engines of St. Louis in the Cramp workshop where they were built

Spanish–American War

On a later voyage following the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, St. Louis was chartered for Naval service while at Southampton and returned to New York on 22 April 1898. Armed with four 5-inch rapid fire guns and eight 6-pounders, she was commissioned as an auxiliary cruiser in the United States Navy on 24 April, Capt. Caspar F. Goodrich in command. St. Louis, crewed by 27 officers and 350 men, departed on 30 April for the Caribbean.

St. Louis was specially outfitted with heavy drag lines in order to destroy undersea cable communications in the West Indies and to the mainland of South America. On 13 May, the ship severed a cable between St. Thomas and San Juan, and on 18 May engaged in gunfire with the Morro Castle batteries at Santiago de Cuba while cutting another cable. When Admiral Pascual Cervera's fleet sailed into Santiago Harbor, the Spanish warships found themselves cut off from direct communications with Spain.

St. Louis next severed the cable between Guantanamo Bay and Haiti; then cut the cable off Cienfuegos to isolate Cuba from outside communications. She joined in the bombardment of fortifications at Caimanera in Guantanamo Bay on 3 June; captured a Spanish merchant ship on the 10th; intercepted two British ships bound for Cuba - the Twickenham on 10 June and Wary on 1 July; and was present at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 3 July when the Spanish Fleet was destroyed while trying to force its way to sea.

St. Louis received many prisoners of war, including Admiral Cervera, for internment in the United States and landed them at Portsmouth, N.H., on 11 July. She steamed south from Norfolk on the 28th to cruise among ports of Puerto Rico and Cuba until 10 August; then sailed for New York where she arrived on the 14th. She shifted to Philadelphia on 24 August to enter the Cramp shipyard for preparation for return to her owners. St. Louis was decommissioned on 2 September and was turned over to Mr. J. Parker, a representative of the American Lines.

World War I

For many years, SS St. Louis was prominent as a passenger liner between New York and Liverpool. For example, in June 1906, the newly married Alice Roosevelt Longworth sailed on the ship for her first trip to Europe. On 17 March 1917, she was provided with an armed guard of 26 sailors and equipped with three 6-inch guns to defend against enemy attack on her New York-to-Liverpool service route. On 30 May, while proceeding up the Irish Sea and skirting the coast of England, she responded rapidly to the orders, "Hard Starboard," at the sighting of a periscope, and succeeded in dodging a torpedo while apparently striking the submarine which fired it. Later dry-dock examination revealed that 18 feet of her keel rubbing strake had been torn away. On 25 July, her gunners exchanged fire with a surfaced U-boat, some three miles away, and sighted many near misses.

351st Field Artillery troops on the deck of the Louisville, Feb. 17, 1919

On 17 April 1918, St. Louis was delivered to the Navy at New York to be wholly manned and operated by the Navy as a troop transport. She was renamed Louisville (SP-1644) to avoid confusion with the heavy cruiser St. Louis. Louisville was commissioned on 24 April.

Louisville first put to sea on 12 October bound for Portland and Southampton, England, and returned to New York on 7 January 1919. From then until 19 August of that year, she made six voyages from New York to Liverpool or to Brest, France, to return American soldiers from the Great War. On 20 August, she shifted to Norfolk and was decommissioned there on 9 September 1919. She was returned to her owner on the 11th and resumed her original name, St. Louis.

Destruction

On 8 January 1920, while St. Louis was being reconditioned as a passenger liner in Hoboken, N.J., a workman's blowtorch ignited a fire. The fire raged into the next day, 9 January. When the fire could not be controlled, the ship was scuttled at the dock and allowed to burn. The only thing left after the fire was her steel hull. Damages were estimated at $1 million. She was later refloated and taken over by insurance underwriters. Over the next five years, under ownership of various investors, she lay at docks in different parts of New York Harbor. Finally, she was sold in 1925; and two Dutch tugs towed her to Italy where she was scrapped by an Italian salvage company.

References

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links

• "The New American Atlantic Liner St. Louis", Scientific American, 11 August 1894
• A detailed report on the ship and experiences of an agent from a rival company (1902)