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West Hobomac (Id. No. 3335)

1918-1919

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

(Id. No. 3335: displacement 12,225; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 24'1" (mean); speed 11.0 knots; complement 70; armament none)

West Hobomac, a steel-hulled, single-screw cargo ship built under a United States Shipping Board (USSB) contract, was launched on 27 July 1918 at Seattle, Wash., by the Skinner & Eddy Corp. Acquired by the Navy on 17 August 1918 for operation by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), West Hobomac was given the identification number (Id. No.) 3335 and commissioned on the same day at Portland, Oregon, Lt. Cmdr. Peter F. Johnson, USNRF, in command.

Departing Portland on 26 August 1918 with 7,928 tons of coal in her holds, West Hobomac arrived at Iquique, Chile, on 23 September. She discharged her cargo there before loading 824 tons of nitrates for shipment to New York. Departing Iquique on 19 October, the freighter steamed north up the Pacific coast of South America, transited the Panama Canal, and arrived at New York on 8 November 1918, three days before the Armistice was signed ending the Great War [World War I]. At New York when the war ended, West Hobomac received repairs to her engines and steering gear; underwent alterations to her crew's quarters; bunkered; and discharged the nitrate cargo.

West Hobomac departed New York on 30 November 1918, bound for France with a cargo of Army supplies, and arrived at Brest nine days before Christmas. The ship discharged her cargo there, loaded 226 tons of Army return cargo and additional ballast, and sailed on 18 January 1919 for home. After making port at New York on 6 February, the ship remained there for nearly two weeks, unloading and taking on board 6,392 tons of cargo for transport to Holland.

Reaching Rotterdam on 11 March 1919, West Hobomac unloaded and departed that port, in ballast, on the 23rd, bound for the United States. Following her arrival at New York, she loaded 5,252 tons of foodstuffs and relief supplies and sailed on 23 April for Belgium. She unloaded the cargo within four days of her mooring at Antwerp on 12 May and sailed for the United States on the 16th. Arriving at Newport News, Va., on 5 June, the cargo vessel was decommissioned there on 10 June 1919 and simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register and returned to the USSB for disposition.

The freighter remained active with the USSB, ranging as far as the Mediterranean Sea, until acquired by the Lykes Brothers, Ripley Steamship Co. in 1933. The vessel was acquired by French interests in March 1940, to come under the house flag of the Compagnie Generale Transtlantique of Paris, France, and renamed Ile de Batz.  WIth the fall of France in the summer of 1940, the ship, then at Falmouth, England, was seized by the British in July 1940 and transferred to the Ministry of War Transport.

Steaming unescorted some 28 miles southwest of Cape Palmas on the morning of 17 March 1942, Ile de Batz (A, J, Watts, Master) came under attack by the German submarine U-68  (Korvettenkapitan Karl-Friedrich Merten, commanding). The submarine torpedoed and damaged the ship, then utilized 10.5 cm gunfire to sink her. The master, 34 crew members, and four gunners reached Cape Palmas safely, but three crewmen and one gunner perished with the ship. The Canadian corvette HMCS Weyburn (K.173) transported them to Freetown.

Updated, Robert J. Cressman

2 February 2024 

Published: Fri Feb 02 14:18:14 EST 2024