West Cohas (Id. No. 3253)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time pof her acquisitiopnm.
(Id. No. 3253: displacement 12,225; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 4'2" (mean); speed 10.5 knots; complement 73; armament 1 4-inch, 1 3-inch)
West Cohas, a single-screw, steel-hulled freighter built under a United States Shipping Board contract at Seattle, Wash., by the Skinner & Eddy Corp., and launched on 4 June 1918, was taken over by the Navy for use with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS); given the identification number ( Id. No.) 3253; and commissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., on 29 June 1918, Lt. Cmdr. William F. Andrews, USNRF, in command.
Following her sea trials off the Pacific northwest, West Cohas sailed for Chile; loaded a cargo of nitrates; and departed the port of Arica on 29 July 1918, bound for Charleston, S.C. Proceeding via the Panama Canal, the cargo vessel unloaded at her east coast destination and proceeded on to Norfolk, Va., where she arrived on 25 September. There, she loaded a full cargo of Army supplies for the American Expeditionary Force in France and departed the east coast on 9 October. Making port at Brest on the 28th, she discharged her cargo (during which time the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918) and departed on 21 November to return home for further Army supplies. She conducted two postwar voyages to La Pallice, France.
Returning to Norfolk on 5 May 1919. West Cohas was decommissioned, stricken from the Navy Register and returned to the Shipping Board on 9 May 1919. She remained in custody of the Board until 1932 or 1933, when she was sold to the Lykes Bros., Ripley Steamship Co. West Cohas operated out of New Orleans into 1940, when her name disappeared from the various registers of merchant vessels.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
1 February 2024
