West Cressey (Id. No. 3813)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id. No. 3813: displacement 12,225; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 23'2" (mean); speed11.0 knots; complement 81; armament none)
West Cressey, a single-screw, steel-hulled cargo ship completed in 1918 under a United States Shipping Board contract (Government hull 36) at Seattle, Wash., by the Skinner & Eddy Corp., was taken over by the Navy on 17 December 1918, given the identification number (Id. No.) 3813 and commissioned on the same day at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., Lt. Cmdr. Charles Lyons, USNRF, in command.
West Cressey soon loaded a cargo of flour for shipment to the Near East and got underway for the east coast on 12 January 1919. Proceeding via the Panama Canal, she arrived at Norfolk, Va., on 2 February. Following alterations and repairs, the ship sailed ten days later for the Mediterranean.
Calling at Gibraltar en route, West Cressey reached Constantinople, Turkey, on 10 March 1919 and discharged her cargo. After taking on board a large quantity of opium to be used for medicinal purposes and filling out her cargo with tobacco, the ship headed home on 27 March and moored at New York City on 28 April.
West Cressey was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy Register on 13 May 1919 and returned to the Shipping Board. She apparently remained in the custody of that agency, and its successor, the Maritime Commission, through the 1930s. She was transferred to the American Mail Line, Ltd., at noon on 21 August 1941 at Seattle, under a general agency agreement.
Transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend Lease at San Francisco, Calif., at noon on 26 January 1943, West Cressey was renamed Briansk, operated initially by FarEast State Sea Shipping Co. until mechanical difficulties led to her being returned to the U.S. in April 1944. Returned to Soviet hands, again under Lend Lease, on 5 November 1944, and renamed Tallinn, she was assigned to operate in the Baltic on 6 November 1946. Running aground off Kamchatka, Tallinn was ultimately written off in 1948.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
1 February 2024
