Easterner (Id.No. 3331)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id.No. 3331: displacement 12,105 (normal) ; length 385'0" (between perpendiculars); beam 51'8"; draft 27'1" (mean); speed 10.5 knots; complement 70)
The steel-hull, single-screw cargo ship Seifuku Maru No. 20, was launched in March 1918 at Kobe, Japan, by the Kawasaki Dockyard Co., for the United States Shipping Board (USSB). Converted for naval use, renamed Easterner and given the identification number (Id.No.) 3331, she was transferred from the USSB on 12 November 1918; and commissioned the same day, Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Fuchs, USNRF, in command.
Assigned to the essential Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), U.S. Army Account, Easterner plodded between Norfolk and French ports twice, 1 December 1918 to 8 May 1919, carrying general cargo for the Army, including freight cars and engineering supplies. The second routine but vital cargo haul was enlivened by one incident, when two days out of Bordeaux, her crew discovered two stowaways, a hapless man and child, on board, who were turned over to immigration authorities upon the ship's arrival at Norfolk.
Easterner was decommissioned and returned to the USSB on 14 May 1919.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
8 March 2023
