Western Belle (Id. No. 3551)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id. No. 3551: displacement 12,100; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; dr. 24'-" (mean); speed 10.5 knots; complement 88; armament none)
Western Belle, a single-screw, steel-hulled cargo ship completed in 1918 under a United States Shipping Board (USSB) contract, at Portland, Oregon, by the Columbia River Shipbuilding Corp., was given the identification number (Id. No.) 3551, and commissioned on 22 November 1918 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., Lt. Cmdr. Olaf Breiland, USNRF, in command.
Taken over by the Navy for use with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), Western Belle cleared Puget Sound on 22 December 1918 with a cargo of 6,818 tons of flour for delivery to New York, N.Y. Proceeding via the Panama Canal, she arrived at New York on 7 January 1919 and bunkered with coal prior to heading for Gibraltar on 18 January. After a brief stay at Gibraltar (3--8 February), she was routed on to Deringe, France, where she off-loaded her cargo. On 20 March, she got underway for home with 924 tons of Army cargo. Arriving at New York on 20 April 1919, Western Belle was simultaneously decommissioned and stricken from the Navy Register on 3 May 1919 and returned to the USSB the same day.
The USSB retained custody of Western Belle until 1932. The ship was then purchased by Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corp. of New York. She was abandoned the following year (1933).
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
20 February 2024
