USS Wabash (ID-1824)
USS Wabash (ID # 1824) shown in 1917 when she was named SS Seneca.
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Wabash |
| Namesake: | A river that rises in Mercer County, Ohio, near Fort Recovery. |
| Owner: | Norddeutscher Lloyd |
| Operator: | Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft "Hansa" |
| Port of registry: | Germany |
| Builder: | Wigham Richardson and Co., Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | 1900 |
| Christened: | SS Wartburg |
| Acquired: | 9 February 1918, at Hoboken, New Jersey |
| Commissioned: | 9 February 1918 |
| Decommissioned: | 21 April 1919 at New York City |
| Renamed: | USS Wabash (ID-1824), 9 February 1918 |
| Struck: | 1919 (est.) |
| Homeport: | New York City |
| Captured: | impounded April 1917 |
| Fate: | returned to the United States Shipping Board in 1919 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | steel-hulled freighter |
| Tonnage: | 5,586 gross tons |
| Displacement: | 10,475 tons |
| Length: | 393 ft 0 in (119.79 m) |
| Beam: | 49 ft 11 in (15.21 m) |
| Draft: | 26 ft 0 in (7.92 m) (mean) |
| Speed: | 11.4 knots |
| Complement: | 93 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: |
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USS Wabash (ID-1824) was a German cargo ship, impounded in the neutral United States when World War I commenced. Once the United States entered the war, the ship was confiscated and turned over to the U.S. Navy for wartime use as USS Wabash.
SS Wartburg was a single-screw, steel-hulled freighter completed in 1900 at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, by Wigham Richardson and Co., Ltd., for service with the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft "Hansa".
Prior to World War I she was operated commercially by the Norddeutscher Lloyd line under the German flag, with her name being changed to Tübingen in 1906-1907. In 1911, she collided with the minelayer Albatross. When the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 made the high seas unsafe for German shipping, she took refuge in an American port and was interned, as the United States at that time was still a neutral nation.
When the United States was drawn into the war on the side opposed to Germany, America lost its neutrality and seized the Tübingen. In April 1917, the cargo ship was taken over by the United States Shipping Board (USSB). Renamed Seneca, she was part of the U.S. merchant marine until February 1918, when she was acquired by the Navy and placed in commission as USS Wabash (ID # 1824).
She was acquired by the U.S. Navy on 9 February 1918, at Hoboken, New Jersey, for use with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service. The cargo ship was renamed Wabash, designated Id. No. 1824, and commissioned on the same day with Lt. Comdr. Frank C. Seeley, USNRF, in command.
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