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Identification Numbered Ships Photo Archive

Itasca (ID 1843)



Call sign (1919):
Love - Jig - Cast - Watch

Call sign (1933):
William - Dog - Dog - Cast
Freighter:

  • Built in 1905 as Setos by W. G. Armstrong, Whitworth and Co., Ltd., Newcastle on Tyne, England for Deutsche Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft (German Steam Shipping Company) Kosmos of
    Hamburg, Germany
  • Interned in 1914 at Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii
  • Taken over by the United States Shipping Board (USSB) in 1917, renamed Itasca and assigned to the War Department
  • Operated with a Navy crew but there is no record of her commissioning although she was assigned the registry number ID-1843
    Ships' Data U.S. Naval Vessels dated 1 November 1918 list commissioning date as 20 August 1917
  • Transfered in 1919 to the Honolulu Steamship Co., Inc, of San Francisco, CA and renamed Honolulu
  • Returned to the USSB and sold 26 January 1920
  • Sold in 1923 to Moore and McCormack Line of New York and renamed Commercial Trader
  • Registered in 1933 to the Honolulu Steamship Co. of Wilmington, DE as the freighter Commercial Trader
  • Sold in 1940 to Lloyd Brasileiro, a government-owned steamship concern in Brazil
  • Torpedoed and sunk 16 September 1942 approximately 75 miles east of Trinidad by the German submarine U-558.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 11,300 t.
    1933 - 4,840 t.
  • Length 412'
    1933 - 399'
  • Beam 51'
  • Draft 25' 4½"
    1933 - 27.3'
  • Speed 10 kts.
  • Complement 104
    1933 - 41
  • Armament: One 5" mount and one 3" mount
  • Propulsion: Three single ended and one auxiliary boiler, one 2,700hp vertical triple expansion steam engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Itasca 331k SS Itasca, ex-German merchant vessel Setos which took refuge at Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1914
    U.S. Navy photo NH 53282    		 Naval History and Heritage Command
    Itasca 85k Photographed circa 1918, after she had been taken over by the U.S. Shipping Board and renamed Honolulu (erroneously)
    Naval Historical Center photo NH 101823    		 Robert Hurst
    View the Itasca (ID 1843)
    DANFS history entry located on the Naval History and Heritage Command website
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