WWI Ship Name Index   Return to WWI Auxiliaries.

UNITED STATES NAVY
TEMPORARY AUXILIARY SHIPS
WORLD WAR I

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

S.S. Santa Cecilia (American cargo ship, 1913).
Served as USS Santa Cecilia (ID # 4008) in 1919

The 6310 gross ton cargo ship Santa Cecilia was completed in November 1913 by William Cramp and Sons, Philadelphia, Pa., for the Atlantic and Pacific Steamship Co. (the Grace Line). She was used by the Army as a cargo ship during World War I and then became one of four Army ships manned by the Navy in March 1919 after conversion to troop transports by the Army. USS Santa Cecilia was taken over by the Navy and commissioned on 10 March 1919 at New York.

Assigned to the Cruiser and Transport Force, Santa Cecilia sailed from Hoboken, N. J., on 11 April 1919 for Bordeaux, France, and returned to New York on 9 May with homeward-bound troops. She completed her fourth and last round-trip trooping voyage on 7 September 1919, and was decommissioned and transferred to the U.S. Shipping Board on 6 October 1919.

Santa Cecilia was registered with several American owners under that name between 1919 and 1935. In 1935 she was renamed Santa Cecilia Maru, taken to Japan, and scrapped at Yawata in July.

Of her two exact sisters, Santa Clara was used by the Navy as both a cargo ship and a transport while Santa Catalina became the destroyer tender USS Black Hawk (AD-9). An earlier turbine-propelled sister, Santa Cruz, saw no naval service. The Grace line revived the name Santa Cecilia in its fleet by renaming other ships in 1927 and 1932.

This page features all available views of the cargo ship Santa Cecilia, which served as USS Santa Cecilia in 1919.

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

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Page made 16 August 2015