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UNITED STATES NAVY
TEMPORARY AUXILIARY SHIPS
WORLD WAR I

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- CIVILIAN SHIPS --

S.S. Clio (Dutch Freighter, 1910).
Briefly served as USS Clio (ID # 2578) in 1918

The steamship Clio, a 2927 gross ton freighter, was built at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1910 for commercial operation under the Dutch flag. She was seized at Key West, Florida, by the United States Government in March 1918 and turned over to the Navy, which placed her in commission early in April as USS Clio (ID # 2578). Later in that month, after voyaging from Key West to Havana, Cuba, and then on to New Orleans, Louisiana, the ship was decommissioned and returned to the U.S. Shipping Board and her Dutch owner, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Co. She became the Soviet Desna in 1934 and was mined and sunk in the Black Sea on 31 January 1943.

This page features all available views representing what may be the freighter Clio, which was briefly USS Clio (ID # 2578) in 1918.

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

The following photograph shows, in the background, a freighter named Clio that may be the same ship that served as USS Clio (ID # 2578) in April 1918:

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Page made 11 December 2004