page_title: SS West Nohno
section_title: Final voyage
hierarchical_section_title: SS West Nohno / Final voyage
caption_attribution_description: English: The Mulberry artificial harbour off Arromanches in Normandy, September 1944. An aerial oblique photograph of the Mulberry Harbour off Arromanches. Artificial harbours were constructed along the beach shortly after D-Day so that armoured vehicles and heavy guns could be landed.
context_page_description: SS West Nohno was a cargo ship for the United States Shipping Board launched shortly after the end of World War I. The ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Nohno but was neither taken into the Navy nor ever commissioned under that name.
  West Nohno was built in 1919 for the USSB, as a part of the West ships, a series of steel-hulled cargo ships built on the West Coast of the United States for the World War I war effort, and was the 24th ship built at Northwest Steel in Portland, Oregon. Completed too late for that conflict, she operated for a number of years as a merchant ship sailing to African ports for the American West African Line.
  In November 1941, West Nohno became the first American merchant ship to be armed prior to the United States' entry into World War II. Shortly after the U.S. entry to that conflict, she was employed for one roundtrip to the Soviet Union in March 1942. After her return, she sailed mainly between the United States and United Kingdom ports. In 1943, a civilian crewman aboard West Nohno was convicted of sedition for trying to incite a rebellion among members of the ship's crew and Naval Armed Guard.
context_section_description: West Nohno had been selected to become one of the blockships for the Allied invasion of France, then in the planning stages. Though the specific modifications performed on West Nohno are not revealed in sources, modifications for other ships do appear. In November 1944, The Christian Science Monitor reported that blockships dispatched from Boston, like West Nohno, had been loaded with "tons of sand and cement" and had been rigged with explosive charges before departing the port. Further, existing antiaircraft weapons had been moved higher up on the ship and supplemented by additional guns. An account by Cesar Poropat, chief engineer aboard West Honaker, another blockship dispatched from Boston, mentions that transverse bulkheads aboard that ship were cut open to facilitate sinking.
  West Nohno departed Boston on 24 February and arrived at Halifax two days later. Departing from that port on 29 February, she sailed in Convoy HX-281 and arrived at Milford Haven on 15 March. She departed there for Portsmouth the same day. West Nohno's whereabouts and movements through early June are not recorded. Other ships that had been selected as blockships assembled in a "corncob" fleet at Oban, though it's not clear if West Nohno did or not. The "corncob" fleet was the group of ships intended to be sunk to form the "gooseberries", shallow-water artificial harbors for landing craft. Poropat reports that once the ship crews were told of their mission while anchored at Oban, they were not permitted to leave the ships.
  Three "corncob" convoys, consisting of what one author called the "dregs of the North Atlantic shipping pool", departed from Poole and reached the Normandy beachhead the next day, shortly after the D-Day landings. Poropat reports that the corncob ships traveled under cover of darkness and, stripped of all unnecessary equipment, carried no radios, having only a signal lamp (with a spare bulb) for communication. Once at the designated location, the ships were put into position and scuttled over the next days, under heavy German artillery fire. Naval Armed Guardsmen manned the guns on all the gooseberry ships to protect against frequent German air attacks; West Nohno's gunners assisted in shooting down several planes on 10 June. All the while, harbor pilots—about half of the New York Bar Pilots Association, according to one source—carefully positioned the ships. West Nohno and West Cheswald were the last two ships sunk off Utah Beach when they went down on 11 June. Even though she had been sunk, West Nohno continued to serve as an antiaircraft platform manned by Navy gun crews until 18 June, and by Army crews after that date. West Nohno's naval gunners were awarded a battle star for participation in the Normandy Landings.
caption: Mulberry artificial harbour in Normandy on September 1944, used to block the incoming wave
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