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Identification Numbered Vessel Photo Archive

Tanamo (ID 2176)

Refrigerated Cargo Ship:

  • Built in 1914 as Van Hogendorp by Swain Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend-on-Tyne, England for the Atlantic Fruit Co. of Baltimore, MD
  • Purchased in 1917 from Algemeene Stoomvaart Maatschappij (General Steamship Company) of Rotterdam, The Netherlands and renamed Tanamo
  • Acquired by the Navy 9 August 1918
  • Commissioned USS Tanamo (ID 2176), 13 September 1918
  • Decommissioned 24 April 1919, struck from the Navy Register and returned to her owner, the Sarnia Steamship Corp. of Broadway, NY
  • Acquired in 1923 by the Cuyamel Fruit Co. of Honduras renamed Lempira
  • Transferred in 1929 to the United Fruit Co. of Guatemala
  • Renamed Tanamo in 1934
  • Sold in 1946 to the Maritime Transport and Trading Co. of Panama renamed Samaria
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 6,000 t.
  • Length 345'
  • Beam 45' 2"
  • Draft 21' 1"
  • Speed 12 kts.
  • Complement 70
  • Propulsion: Three Neptune Works single ended cylindrical multitubular 180psi and one auxiliary boiler, one 1,750hp vertical triple expansion steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    SS Van Hogendorp
    Tanamo 192k Photo from the February 1915 edition of International Marine Engineering magazine Joe Radigan
    Photo added 7 April 2020
    USS Tanamo (ID 2176)
    Tanamo 91k In a snowy port, circa winter 1918-1919. Note the ship's weathered pattern camouflage and the name board on the face of her bridge
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 65044 from Shipscribe.com    		 Robert Hurst
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Tanamo (Id. No. 2176), built in 1914 as Van Hogendorp by Swain Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, was taken over by the Navy at New York on 9 August 1918 on a bare-boat basis from the Sarnia Steamship Corp., Broadway, N.Y. She was refitted as a refrigerator ship and commissioned on 17 August 1918.

    Tanamo, assigned to duty with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, loaded a cargo of beef and 57 trucks and sailed in a convoy on the 17th for France. Due to boiler trouble, she dropped out of the convoy, entering Halifax on the 30th for temporary repairs and then proceeding on 5 September to New York for additional repairs. On 4 October, Tanamo sailed with a convoy for Verdon, arrived there on the 20th and unloaded her cargo.

    The ship sailed for home on 3 November and arrived at New York on the 19th. After general repairs and loading 1,479 tons of beef and a deck load of trucks she returned to St. Nazaire on 14 December 1918. She began her last round-trip voyage from New York to France for the Navy on 15 February 1919.

    Upon her return to New York on 2 April, the ship was scheduled for demobilization. Tanamo was decommissioned on 24 April 1919 and returned to her owner.

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