Kaiser Wilhelm II (Id.No. 3004)
1917
The Navy briefly retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Id.No. 3004: displacement 25,530; length 706'3"; beam 72'3"; depth of hold 40' 2 1/4"; draft 29'10"; speed 23.5 knots; complement 962; troops 3,516; armament 4 6-inch, 2 1-ounders., 2 Colt Lewis .30-caliber machine guns, 10 depth charges)
Kaiser Wilhelm II, a steel-hulled, twin-screw express passenger steamship, was built for the North German Lloyd Line by Vulkan Aktiengesellschaft at Stettin. Kaiser Wilhelm II made her first Atlantic crossing in 1903 and, for a decade, operated with speed and efficiency between Bremen and New York. She was at sea, en route to the U.S., when the Great War [World War I] began on 3 August 1914. She reached New York on the 6th, arriving off the Ambrose Lightship with only her running lights showing and dispensing with the usual whistle signals. To evade capture by three British cruisers, she had kept within the three-mile limit during the last hours of the passage.
On 6 April 1917, the day the U.S. entered the Great War, the collector of customs of the Port of New York seized Kaiser Wilhelm II, along with 26 other German vessels, in New York harbor, to prevent the ships' destruction at the hands of their crews. Unbeknownst to the Americans, however, Kaiser Wilhelm II's crew had surreptiously "commenced tampering with the machinery" as early as 31 January 1917, extensively sabotaging her engineering plant. Two and one-half years of enforced idleness had not helped the condition of the engines.
After preliminary repairs at Hoboken,Kaiser Wilhelm II was towed to the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., on 22 May 1917 for conversion to a troopship. During overhaul and fitting out, she also served as a temporary receiving ship, sometimes feeding as many as 5,000 men in one day.
The Navy formally took over the ship on 21 August 1917 and that day placed her in commission as Kaiser Wilhelm II, Capt. Casey B. Morgan in command. On 1 September 1917 Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels ordered her name changed to the less Teutonic Agamemnon (q.v.).
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
23 May 2022
