Westpool (Id. No. 3675)
1918-1919
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time she was acquired.
(Id. No. 3675: displacement 12,170; length 410'5-"; beam 54'0"; depth 29'9"; draft 24'1" (mean); speed 11.5 knots; complement 103; armament none)
Westpool, sometimes referred to as West Pool, and origionally ordered as Petain, was a steel-hulled, single-screw cargo vessel built under a United States Shipping Board (USSB) contract. She was completed in 1918 at Seattle, Wash., by J. F. Duthie & Co.; was inspected by the Navy; given the identification number (Id. No.) 3675; was acquired by the Navy on 2 November 1918; and was commissioned the same day, Lt. Cmdr. William H. Harstedt, USNRF, in command.
Departing Puget Sound on 8 November 1918, just three days before the signing of the Armitsice that ended the Great War [World War I], Westpool subsequently loaded cargo in the Canal Zone for the Panama Railroad Co. before resuming her voyage to New York City on 9 December. After arriving there on the 20th, she delivered her freight before loading 5,002 tons of Army cargo. Departing New York City on 1 February 1919, Westpool sailed for European waters.
Upon her arrival at Antwerp, Belgium, on 18 February 1919, the ship discharged part of her cargo there before shifting to Swansea, Wales, late in February to unload the remainder. Having completed this task between 1 and 5 March, Westpool departed the British Isles on 5 March and headed for the United States. Westpool put into New York harbor on 23 March and was decommissioned there eight days later, on 31 March 1919. Simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register and returned to the USSB, Westpool subsequently remained under U.S. government ownership, in and out of active service, through the 1930s, until being transferred to the British Ministry of War Transport in 1941.
Steaming in convoy SC-26 on 3 April 1941, south-southwest of Reykjavik, Iceland, Westpool (49-year old William Stafford, Master), with a cargo of 7,144 tons of scrap iron, was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-73 (Kapitanleutnant Helmut Rosenbaum, commanding). Westpool began her plunge to the bottom within a minute, taking 35 souls -- Capt. Stafford, 33 of his crew, and one gunner -- with her. The British destroyer HMS Havelock (D.88) (Cmdr. Earle H. Thomas, DSC, RN) rescued the eight survivors, landing them at Liverpool, England, on 9 April, six days later.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
21 February 2024
