Western Star (Id. No. 4210)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time she was acquired.
(Id. No. 4210: displacement 12,185; length 423'9"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; draft 24'0" (mean) ; speed 12.0 knots; complement 98; armament none)
Western Star, a single-screw, steel-hulled cargo ship constructed under a United States Shipping Board contract for the French Compagnie Generale at Portland, Oregon, by J. F. Duthie & Co., was launched on Independence Day, 4 July 1918. Taken over by the Navy on 28 August 1918 and given the identification number (Id. No.) 4210, Western Star was commissioned on the same day, Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Tull, USNRF, in command.
Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), Western Star arrived at Union Bay, British Columbia, on 5 September 1918, where she loaded a cargo of coal for shipment to Chile and underwent a thorough search for possible bombs or explosives. Departing Union Bay on the 15th, she arrived at Iquique on 13 October and unloaded her coal cargo before shifting to Caleta Buena, where she loaded a cargo of nitrates.
After getting underway from Chile on 4 November 1918, Western Star proceeded north, transited the Panama Canal, and made port at Savannah, Georgia, on 5 December. She unloaded the nitrates and proceeded to Tompkinsville, N.Y., where she arrived on the last day of 1918. The cargo ship was decommissioned there on 1 March, and was simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register and returned to the Shipping Board on the same day.
Western Star remained in the custody of that agency until abandoned, due to age and deterioration, in 1933.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
26 February 2024
