West Cobalt (Id. No. 3836)
1918-1919
(Id. No. 3836: displacement 12,424; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 24'2" (mean); speed 10.0 knots; complement 78; armament none)
West Cobalt, a steel-hulled, single-screw cargo ship built in 1918 under a United States Shipping Board contract at Portland, Oregon, by the Columbia River Shipbuilding Co., was taken over by the Navy for use by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS); designated Id. No. 3836; and commissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., on 29 December 1918, Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Patterson, USNRF, in command.
Following sea trials, West Cobalt sailed on 11 January 1919 for San Pedro, Calif., where she loaded a full cargo of grain consigned to the Northern Food Relief for a Shipping Board account. On 17 January, the cargo vessel got underway for Norfolk, Va., and arrived at Hampton Roads on 10 February. Nine days later, West Cobalt got underway for Danzig, via Plymouth, England, and the Hook of Holland. She soon discharged her cargo, the needed grain going to feed the hungry in the aftermath of the Great War [World War I], and sailed for the United States on 8 April.
West Cobalt reached New York City on 24 April 1919, was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy Register on 5 May 1919 and returned to the Shipping Board.
Eventually purchased by the Lykes Bros., Ripley Steamship Co., Inc., and homeported at New Orleans, La., and Galveston, Texas, into early 1940, the freighter was then acquired by the British government. Renamed Empire Miniver, she was proceeding as part of convoy SC-7 when she was torpedoed and sunk on 18 October 1940 by U-99, the U-boat commanded by Korvettenkapitan Otto Kretschmer, who went on to become the top-scoring German submariner in World War II. The British corvette HMS Bluebell (K.80) rescued Master Robert Smith and 34 surviving crewmen; three sailors perished with the ship.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
2 February 2024
