West Point I (Id.No. 3254)
1918-1919
The first West Point retained the name she carried at the time of her acquisition.
I
(Id.No. 3254; displacement 12,459; length 423'0"; beam 54'0"; depth of hold 29'9"; dr. 24'1" (mean); speed 10 knots; complement 124; armament 1 6-inch, 1 6-pounder)
The first West Point , a steel-hulled freighter laid down as War Leopard , was built in 1918 at Portland, Oregon, by J. F. Duthie Acquiored by the Navy from the United States Shipping Board (USSB) on 5 August 1918 and, assigned the identification number (Id.No.) 3254, was commissioned at Brooklyn, N.Y., three days later, Lt. Cmdr. Horace A. Arnold, USNRF, in command.
Laden with 6,884 tons of general cargo for the U.S. Army in France, West Point departed New York on 21 August 1918 for her first voyage under the aegis of the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS). She arrived at Brest on the 7th and pushed on for Paulliac the same day to unload her cargo. Returning to New York on 23 October, she loaded 5,532 tons of general Army supplies and sailed on 4 November for Verdon-sur-Mer, France. During the crossing, the signing of the Armistice on 11 November ended the Great War [World War I].
Arriving at Verdon-sur-Mer on 23 November 1918, she unloaded and headed for the east coast of the United States on 6 December. The ship subsequently made one more voyage with cargo for Europe. She departed Boston on 18 January 1919; unloaded her cargo from 2 to 12 February at Brest, took on 1,620 tons of steel rails, and reached Newport News, Va., on 13 March.
Shifting to Boston soon thereafter, West Point was decommissioned on 24 April 1919 and returned to the USSB, being simultaneously stricken from the Navy Register. Renamed Westerner, the former NOTS cargo vessel was ultimately scrapped at Hamburg, Germany, in 1938.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
21 April 2022
