USS Wenonah, a 290 gross ton patrol vessel, was built in 1915 at Neponset, Massachusetts, by the firm of George Lawley & Sons as a civilian steam yacht. She was acquired for World War I U.S. Navy service in June 1917 and, following conversion, placed in commission in October. The next month, in company with other former yachts and submarine chasers, Wenonah began a voyage across the Atlantic to the European war zone. Steaming by way of Bermuda and the Azores, she arrived at Gibraltar in late December. In January 1918 she began the vital work of escorting Allied convoys in the western Mediterranean. On 23 and 24 July 1918, while between Gibraltar and Genoa, Italy, she dropped depth charges in response to a German submarine attack on her convoy and conducted rescue operations for survivors of torpedoed merchantmen.
In December 1918, about a month after the Armistice had brought a halt to more than four years of bloody war, Wenonah steamed out of Gibraltar, en route home. After a stormy passage, she arrived at New London, Connecticut, early in January 1919. The ship was decommissioned in April of that year and transferred to the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Returned to the Navy in October 1922, she was laid up on the West Coast. Though redesignated PY-11 in September 1923, USS Wenonah had no further active service. She was sold in mid-May 1929.
This page features all the views we have concerning USS Wenonah (SP-165, later PY-11) and the civilian steam yacht Wenonah.
For more photographs related to USS Wenonah's November
1917 trip from Newport, Rhode Island, to the Azores, see:
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.
For more photographs related to USS Wenonah's November
1917 trip from Newport, Rhode Island, to the Azores, see:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 31 October 2004