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TEMPORARY AUXILIARY SHIPS
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-- CIVILIAN SHIPS --
S.S. Glen White (American Collier, 1918)
Served as USS Glen White (ID # 2068) in 1918-1919
Glen White, a 5438 gross ton (12,163 tons displacement) collier built in 1918 at Camden, New Jersey, was one of a series of eight similar ships built by the New York Shipbuilding Corp. between 1915 and 1918 for two U.S. coastal shipping firms, the Coastwise Transportation Co. and Darrow Mann Co. Five of these, Plymouth (ID # 3308), Fairmont (ID # 2429), Glen White (ID # 2068), Winding Gulf (ID # 3379), and William N. Page (ID # 3844) served in the Navy, while Franklin, Tidewater, and Sewalls Point did not.
On 22 July 1918, immediately after completing construction, S.S. Glen White was transferred to the Navy and placed in commission USS Glen White (ID # 2068). She was employed by the Navy as a general cargo ship and not as a collier. The ship made her first transatlantic crossing during August 1918, in a convoy from Norfolk, Virginia, to St. Nazaire, France. Glen White returned to New York in late September 1918, loaded a second cargo, and made another crossing to St. Nazaire during October. A third voyage to St. Nazaire followed in December 1918 and January 1919. Glen White returned to Baltimore in February 1919 and was decommissioned there on 6 March 1919. She operated as a merchant ship for a series of different American owners, but without changing her name, until she was scrapped at Philadelphia in 1948.
Note: World War I-era Navy clerks appear to have thought that Glen White was S.S. Tidewater renamed and that both names referred to the same ship. They assigned ID # 2068 to this ship -- the number was later used exclusively for Glen White. Shipyard and other records make it clear that these were different vessels. Additional evidence of the error was provided when in May 1943 S.S. Glen White and S.S. Isaac T. Mann (ex-Tidewater) sailed from Cuba to New York in the same convoy.
This page features all available views concerning the American collier Glen White, which was USS Glen White (ID # 2068) in 1918-1919.
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
Photo #: NH 101729
Being launched at the New York Shipbuilding Co., Camden, N.J. on 20 April 1918. She was in commission as USS Glen White (ID # 2068) from 22 July 1918 to 6 March 1919.
The original print is in National Archives' Record Group 19-LCM.
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph.
Online Image: 67KB; 515 x 765 pixels
S.S. Franklin (American collier, 1915)
Franklin was completed at Camden, N.J. in 1915 and never served in the Navy. She is flying a flag on her foremast showing her name, a common practice during builder's trials. This photo was used on a Navy data card to represent USS Glen White (ID # 2068), a similar ship completed at Camden in May 1918 and commissioned on 22 July 1918. The name Tidewater written on the photo is of a third ship of this type that was completed at Camden in 1917 but saw no Navy service. Glen White was decommissioned on 6 March 1919.
Related image:
Photo # NH 106016-B, a view showing, in its left background, a ship which may be Glen White.
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Page made 26 May 2008
New image added 6 December 2008