Muscatine, a 4430 gross ton (10,562 tons displacement) refrigerated cargo ship, was built at Shooters Island, New York, in 1918 as part of the World War I emergency ship construction effort. Originally ordered by a northern European shipowner as Scandinavic, she was requisitioned by the U.S. Shipping Board and renamed Stian during the early stages of construction. After being launched she was again renamed, becoming Muscatine. The ship was taken over by the Navy and commissioned on 2 May 1918 as USS Muscatine (ID # 2226). She loaded around 2800 tons of frozen beef and other foodstuffs and departed Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 30 May 1918 in a convoy bound for St. Nazaire, France, where she arrived on 14 June. Returning to New York on 25 July, between August 1918 and June 1919 she made five more voyages between the United States and St. Nazaire with cargoes of up to 5,300 tons of frozen beef plus, on one occasion, a deck load of auto parts. Muscatine was decommissioned and returned to the Shipping Board at New York on 16 July 1919. She remained in Shipping Board hands, probably in reserve, as S.S. Muscatine until she was sold and renamed Floridian in 1928. She became Elizabeth in 1936. On 20 May 1942 she was torpedoed and sunk in the Yucatan Channel by the German submarine U-103.
This page features the only view we have concerning the American freighter Muscatine, ex Stian, which was USS Muscatine (ID # 2226) in 1918-1919.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 11 September 2007