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UNITED STATES NAVY
TEMPORARY AUXILIARY SHIPS
WORLD WAR I

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

S.S. Lake Conesus (American Freighter, 1918)
Originally named War Gnome.
Served as USS Lake Conesus (ID # 4331) in 1918-1919

Lake Conesus, a 2292 gross ton (5230 tons displacement) freighter, was built at Ecorse, Michigan, in 1918 as part of the World War I emergency ship construction effort. She was ordered by the British as War Gnome but was requisitioned by the U.S. Shipping Board and renamed before construction began. Completed at the end of June 1918, Lake Conesus was initially manned by the U. S. Shipping Board and sailed to Europe in convoy, carrying almost 3,000 tons of Army general cargo. Once in European waters she operated in cross-Channel service with a civilian crew, in support of the Army, but on 14 November 1918 was taken over by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (N.O.T.S.) at Cardiff, Wales, and commissioned as USS Lake Conesus (ID # 4331). The ship spent most of her N.O.T.S. career in the Army coal trade, carrying coal from Wales to French ports, interrupted in March 1919 when she had to have a broken propeller repaired at Plymouth, England. Lake Conesus departed Wales for the United States on 13 September 1919 and was decommissioned and returned to the Shipping Board on 11 October 1919. She was scrapped by the Ford Motor Company at Detroit, Michigan, in 1927.

This page features all available views concerning the American freighter Lake Conesus, which was USS Lake Conesus (ID # 4331) in 1918-1919.

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Page made 11 September 2007