Grosser Kurfurst (Id.No. 3005)
1917
The Navy briefly retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id.No. 3005: displacement 20,000; 1ength 580'10 5/8"; beam 62'3"; draft 30'0" (mean); speed 15.5 knots; complement 513; armament 4 5-inch, 2 1-pounders, 2 Colt machine guns, 1 Lewis machine gun, 9 “depth mines”)
Grosser Kurfurst, a steel-hulled, twin-screw, passenger-and-cargo steamship launched on 2 December 1899 at Danzig, Germany, by the shipbuilding firm of F. Schichau for the Norddeutscher Lloyd Line, made her maiden voyage to Asiatic and Australian ports before commencing regularly scheduled voyages from the spring of 1900 between Bremen, Germany, and New York City which continued until the summer of 1914.
When the Great War [World War I] broke out in Europe, Grosser Kurfurst, a liner that boasted “enormous carrying capacity” and “excellent passenger accommodation” for all classes from first to steerage, was forced to seek shelter in American waters. The U.S. Government interned these ships wherever they had put into port, and upon the entrance of the United States into the hostilities on the side of the Allied and Associated Powers on 6 April 1917, took them over for “safe keeping.” Customs agents boarded Grosser Kurfurst in the port of New York, along with 30 other German and Austro-Hungarian vessels, and sent their crews to an internment camp on Ellis Island. Before those sailors left their ships, however, they carried out a program of systematic destruction calculated to take the longest possible time to repair.
The Navy inspected Grosser Kurfurst and gave her the identification number (Id.No.) 3005 and earmarked her for service with the Cruiser and Transport Force to carry troops to France. She commissioned as Grosser Kurfurst on 4 August 1917, at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., Cmdr. Clarence S. Kempff in command. While the ship was undergoing the repairs and alterations necessitated by the German sabotage and in light of her expected role carrying troops across the Atlantic, General Order No. 320 of 1 September 1917 changed her name to Aeolus (q.v.).
Robert J. Cressman
Updated, 23 May 2022
