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West Elcasco (Id. No. 3661)

1918-1919

The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.

(Id. No. 3661: displacement 12,200; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; dph. 29'9"; dr. 24'2" (mean); speed 11.25 knots; complement 70; armament: none)

West Elcasco, a steel-hulled, single-screw freighter built in 1918 under a United States Shipping Board contract at Seattle, Wash., by Skinner & Eddy Corp., was acquired by the Navy on 23 October 1918 for use with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS); given the identification number (Id. No.) 3661; and commissioned the same day, Lt. Cmdr. Louis T.  Ward, USNRF, in command.

Laden with a cargo of flour, West Elcasco departed Seattle on 31 October 1918, bound for the east coast. After stopping briefly at San Pedro, Calif., she transited the Panama Canal and arrived at New York on 2 December. With her cargo consigned to European food relief, she got underway for Europe on 8 December and arrived at Gibraltar on the last day of 1918. From the strait, she proceeded to the Adriatic Sea and arrived at Trieste on 11 January 1919. After discharging part of her cargo there, West Elcasco shifted to Gallipoli, on the Dardanelles, where she delivered the remainder of her cargo. She then took on a cargo of depth charges and headed home on 15 February.

After her arrival at Philadelphia on 7 March 1919, she shifted to Boston and loaded a cargo of foodstuffs for France. She got underway on 8 April for France and delivered her cargo after arriving at Verdon-sur-Mer. Returning from Europe, via New York, to Boston on 9 June, West Elcasco was decommissioned on 14 June. She was stricken from the Navy Register on 24 June 1919.

Transferred to the Shipping Board on that day, the freighter was sold in 1930 to the Mississippi Shipping Co. and homeported at New York. On 24 July 1941, the United States Army Quartermaster Corps acquired the ship and renamed her Major General Henry Gibbins.  

USAT Major General Henry Gibbins (Peter A. Kalleberg, Master) bound for New Orleans with a cargo of 5,235 tons of coffee, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-158 (Kapitanleutnant Erwin Rostin, commanding) on 23 June 1942. Fortunately, there were no casualties among the 68 men of the crew and armed guard, who were all rescued.

U-158 sank one more ship, on 29 June 1942, but the Type IXC U-boat, after a highly successful war patrol, was depth-charged by a Martin PBM-3c Mariner of Patrol Squadron (VP) 74 and sunk on 30 June 1942, taking Kapitanleutnant Roston and his crew, as well as the two prisoners taken from the ship sunk on the 29th, 56 souls all told, to the  bottom.

Updated and fate corrected, Robert J. Cressman

1 February 2024

Published: Fri Feb 02 10:56:39 EST 2024