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UNITED STATES NAVY
TEMPORARY AUXILIARY SHIPS
WORLD WAR I

Cargo ship Chamois, ex Westmount, which was USS Westmount in 1918-19


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

Westmount (American Cargo Ship, 1918).
Served as USS Westmount (ID # 3202) in 1918-19

Westmount (sometimes referred to as West Mount) was a 5584 gross ton cargo vessel built for the French Compagnie Generale Transatlantique. Constructed at Seattle, Wash., by the Ames Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. and launched on 16 April 1918, Westmount was taken over by the United States Navy for operation by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS) and commissioned at Seattle on 21 May 1918.

Westmount - with a cargo of flour in her holds - departed Seattle on 23 May, bound for the east coast through the Panama Canal. After arriving at New York on 2 July, the freighter underwent repairs and sailed for France on the 13th. She made port at Bordeaux on the 29th, discharged her cargo, and sailed homeward with 1,000 tons of iron ore. She arrived at New York on 9 October.

The cargo vessel commenced her second wartime voyage for NOTS on 24 October and made port at Brest, France, on 8 November. Three days later, the armistice that ended the fighting was signed. Westmount subsequently departed Brest on 12 December, spent Christmas at sea, and arrived at New York on New Year's Day, 1919.

Westmount remained there long enough to load a cargo of flour and milk consigned to the Food Administration and got underway on 22 January 1919, bound via Gibraltar, for the Near East. After reaching Turkey, Westmount delivered her foodstuff at Constantinople and eventually returned home with 2,785 tons of return cargo for the Shipping Board. She arrived at Phildelphia on 1 May.

Decommissioned there on 23 May, Westmount was simultaneously struck from the Navy list and turned over to the Shipping Board. Referred to in postwar mercantile lists as Westmount, the ship was successively renamed Pacific Redwood in 1928, Empire Chamois (British) in 1941, Granview in 1947, and Chamois (Panamanian) in 1949. She was scrapped at Antwerp in December 1957.

This page features all available views of the cargo ship Westmount, which served as USS Westmount in 1918-19.


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

Photo #: None

S.S. Westmount (U.S. cargo ship, 1918)

Shown as the Panamanian merchantman Chamois between 1949 and 1957. She still has her World War I era rig with twin kingposts in place of the usual two single masts.

Source: Shipscribe.

 
Photo #: None

S.S. Western Knight (U.S. cargo ship, 1919)

This sister of Westmount built by Ames just after the last of this class acquired by the Navy, Western Ally, was completed in April 1919 with two single masts in place of the wartime kingpost pairs. She still followed the wartime practice of omitting the topmasts on these masts in favor of a single topmast stepped on one of the kingposts amidships. Ships of this class completed after mid-1918 may have been fitted thus.

Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-32-UB.

 


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