EFC Design 1128 (Cramp S.B. type): Notes & Illustrations
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Notes: In mid-1918 the Navy and the Shipping Board's Emergency Fleet Corporation collaborated on a plan to build twelve merchant-type tankers for Navy use. The EFC added the ships to its building program as its hulls 1650-1661 and retained ownership of the vessels, but it delegated to the Navy all aspects of their construction, including contracting, design, and supervision of construction. The ships were built at yards that worked for the Navy and not the EFC. On completion the EFC was to loan the ships to the Navy, which would take them over and man them for its own use. On 29 Aug 1918 the Navy on behalf of the EFC signed a contract with the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Co. for construction of four oil tank steamers of about 10,000 tons deadweight capacity. Navy names for the four ships were assigned by Navy General Order 503 of 2 September 1919 and promulgated within the EFC on 15 October 1919. For these ships Cramp selected a 446-foot design to which it had built 5 earlier tankers: J. M. Danziger (1916), Sunoil (1916), Wm. Rockefeller (1916), Harold Walker (1917), and William Green (1917). The first of the four new ships, Alameda, was delivered to the Navy and commissioned in October 1919, but with the war over the Navy turned the other three over to the Shipping Board as soon as the shipbuilder delivered them. The Navy reacquired them in 1922 but they remained in reserve until 1940. As built the ships had a cargo capacity of 8,850 tons of oil. See the page in this site on the Alameda (AO-10) Class for subsequent information and photos. |
| USS Alameda (AO-10, Design 1128, EFC Hull 1650) at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Va., on 7 March 1921, in a panoramic photograph by Crosby, "Naval Photographer," Portsmouth, Va. The Navy sold this ship in 1922 after an explosion in her boiler room and fire at sea in November 1921, only to reacquire her as USS Silver Cloud (IX-143) in July 1944. (NHHC: NH 103100) (Click photo to enlarge) |
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S.S. Wm. Rockefeller (1916) William Cramp and Sons used the design of this ship, which the firm delivered in December 1916, to build the four tankers of the Alameda class. Wm. Rockefeller was taken over by the Navy in late 1917 and was torpedoed on 18 May 1918 while carrying fuel to U.S. naval forces in Scotland. Photo No. NH 105239 Source: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command. |
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USS Laramie (AO-16, EFC Design 1128, EFC Hull 1652) In reserve at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 5 June 1940 just before being recommissioned in ordinary there on 26 June 1940. She had been decommissioned on 19 June 1922 at the Norfolk Navy Yard after being ferried there with Kaweah from Mobile, Ala., and was placed in full commission at the Brooklyn Navy Yard after reactivation on 6 December 1940. On the left is the dismantled destroyer Taylor (DD-94) which became Damage Control Hulk #40, and the ship on the right may be Bridgeport (AD-10). Photo No. Unknown Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-19-LCM. |
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USS Mattole (AO-17, EFC Design 1128, EFC Hull 1653) In reserve at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 5 June 1940 just before being recommissioned in ordinary on 16 June 1940. She had been decommissioned on 19 June 1922 and was placed in full commission after reactivation on 15 November 1940. Photo No. Unknown Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-19-LCM. |
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USS Laramie (AO-16, EFC Design 1128, EFC Hull 1652) At the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 13 December 1940 one week after having been placed in full commission there. She is alongside the passenger liner Manhattan which was then in coastal service on the U.S. East Coast. She ran aground a month later north of Palm Beach and was refloated 22 days later. Photo No. Unknown Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-19-LCM |
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