U.S.S. Somers (1897)

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U.S.S. Somers (1897)
Hull Number: TB-22
Builder: Schichau-Werke, Elbing[1]
Yard Number: 450[2][3]
Purchased: 25 March, 1898[4]
Launched: 1891[5]
Commissioned: 28 March, 1898
Decommissioned: 22 March, 1919[6]
Stricken: 7 October, 1919[7]
Sold: 19 July, 1920[8]
Fate: Broken up
U.S.S. Somers was a torpedo boat purchased from Germany for the U.S. Navy in 1898.

Construction

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships

Sources differ on her history prior to purchase by the U.S. Navy. The agreed facts are that she was built by Schichau-Werke of Elbing and her internal designation was No. 450.[9][10]

Although Silverstone describes her as being begun by Schichau-Werke "as a speculation" in 1893 and being launched in 1897, the authoritative work of Erich Gröner and his successors list her as an experimental boat built for the Imperial German Navy.[11][12] Described as the "Schichau experimental boat", she was launched and commissioned in 1891 and used to test a quadruple-expansion engine in a torpedo boat in dockyard tests from 14 November, 1891 to 12 February, 1892, after which she was laid up.[13]

She was purchased by the U.S. Navy through Schichau's London representative on 25 March, 1898 at a cost of $72,997.[14]

Service

No. 450 was officially named Somers on 29 March, 1898, having been commissioned the previous day with Lieutenant John J. Knapp in command.

Somers sailed for England on 30 March, manned by a German contract crew. On 5 April, she arrived at Weymouth, whence she was to be escorted across the Atlantic by the gunboat Topeka. However, the British crew contracted for the voyage thought Somers unsafe and refused to put to sea. A second attempt to sail also failed, and the torpedo boat was ordered laid up at Falmouth until the conclusion of the Spanish-American War.

Somers arrived at New York as cargo on board S.S. Manhattan on 2 May, 1899 and remained at the New York Navy Yard until 8 October 1900, when she got underway for League Island, Pennsylvania. Subsequently decommissioned there, she was reassigned to the Reserve Torpedo Flotilla at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where she was based from 1901 to 1909. On 26 June, 1909, she was loaned to the Maryland Naval Militia and made periodic training cruises from Baltimore until returned to the Navy in 1914.

Scheduled for transfer to the Illinois Naval Militia, Somers was recommissioned on 17 August 1914 for the passage to Cairo, Illinois, where she was decommissioned and transferred to the State of Illinois on 13 October. Later renamed and redesignated Coast Torpedo Boat No. 9 to allow the name Somers to be given to the new Destroyer No. 301, she served as a training ship until returned to Navy custody after the end of World War I.

She was commissioned one last time for the passage back to the east coast, and returned to Philadelphia where she was decommissioned on 22 March, 1919. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 7 October, 1919, and her hulk was sold for scrapping on 19 July, 1920 to the U.S. Rail and Salvage Corp. of Newburgh, New York.

Captains

Dates of appointment are provided when known.

Armament

  • four 1-pdr guns
  • three 18-in torpedo tubes, one on centreline aft, and one on each broadside between second and third funnels

See Also

Footnotes

  1. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 161.
  2. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  3. German Warships 1815-1945 I. p. 161.
  4. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. p. 161.
  5. German Warships 1815-1945 I. p. 161.
  6. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  7. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  8. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  9. German Warships 1815-1945 I. p. 160.
  10. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  11. German Warships 1815-1945 I. pp. 160-161.
  12. Silverstone. The New Navy. p. 39.
  13. German Warships 1815-1945 I. p. 161.
  14. "U.S. Torpedo Boat Somers." Marine Engineering V (4): p. 165.
  15. Boston Globe 6 April, 1898 p. 5.

Bibliography

  • Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
  • Friedman, Norman (1985). U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. (on Amazon.com).
  • Gröner, Erich (revised and expanded by Dieter Jung and Martin Maass) (1990). German Warships 1815-1945. Volume One: Major Surface Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.
  • Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.


Torpedo Boat U.S.S. Somers
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