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Specifications: Displacement 5,150 t.; Length 375'; Beam 42'; Depth of hold 27'; Draft 18' 6"; Speed 17 kts.; Complement unknown; Armament one 5", two 3" and two machine guns.

Click On Image For Full Size Image	Size	Image Description		Source
	71k	U.S. Navy minelayers proceeding to sea in two columns, in Area Number 2 of the North Sea, September 1918. Ships in the column at left are (from front to rear): Roanoke, Housatonic, Quinnebaug and Baltimore. Ships in column at right are (from front to rear): Canonicus (out of picture, to right), Canandaigua, Aroostook and Saranac. Note disruptive "dazzle" camouflage worn by these ships. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. U. S. Army Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-43563		Naval Historical Center

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Her conversion delayed by material shortages and labor problems, Saranac completed training and fitting out in May and June. On 16 June, she sailed for Scotland to participate in the laying of a proposed mine barrage between the Orkneys and Norway to close that avenue to the Atlantic and limit German U-boat activity to the North Sea. She arrived at Inverness on the 29th; and, on 14 July, headed for the minefield to plant 597 mines. Before the end of the month, she had completed a second excursion which brought her total to 1,177. During August, breakdowns in her mining apparatus and engineering plant precluded mining activities, but, in early September, she returned to the fields. On the 7th, she planted 600 mines and on the 20th added another 600.

On her third excursion into the barrage area during that month, 26 through 28 September, Saranac suffered her only loss of World War I. G.C. Anderson, BMC, went overboard when the inhaul wire of the port paravane parted on the afternoon of the 27th. All efforts to recover him were unsuccessful.

Between then and 26 October, when she planted her last mine, Saranac completed four excursions to the fields and laid another 2,445 mines. On 11 November she received word of the Armistice and soon thereafter prepared to return home. At the end of the month, she departed Inverness for Scapa Flow where her crew saw the surrendered German ships. On 8 December she began to make her way back to the United States. Steaming via English and Portuguese ports, she arrived in Hampton Roads, Va., on 3 January 1919, and later in the month moved up to the Philadelphia Navy Yard. There, on 19 March 1919, she was decommissioned and delivered to the United States Shipping Board for return to her owner.