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NavSource Online: Army Ship Photo Archive


USAT Hooker

Transport / Cable Ship:
  • Built in 1875 as SS Branksome Hall (I), by the London and Glasgow Shipbuilding Co., Grovin, Scotland
  • Launched date unknown
  • Purchased in 1881 by Compania Transatlantica Espanola, Renamed SS Panama
  • SS Panama operated between the West Indies, Cuba and Spain
  • Captured in 1898 by the US Lighthouse Tender USLHS Mangrove during the Spanish-American war
  • Assigned to the US Army as a troop transport
  • Converted for cable work by the Morse Iron Works, Brooklyn, N.Y.
  • The first and last cable expedition undertaken by Hooker was to lay cables in the Philippines
  • Final Disposition, on 11 August 1899, on the way to Hong Kong for coaling, Hooker ran aground and became a total loss ran aground on Corregidor Island in Manila Bay and became a total loss
    Specifications:
    Displacement 2,000 gross tons
    Length 333'
    Beam 33'
    Draft 24'1"
    Speed unknown
    Complement unknown
    Cruise Radius unknown
    Fuel Capacities unknown
    Propulsion
    one triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine
    single shaft
    Click On Image
    For Full Size Image    		Size Image Description Source
    Merchant Service
    Hooker
    30040403    		 128k Black and white photograph of a painting of British flagged SS Branksome Hall (I) underway, date unknown.
    Clydeships.co.uk     		John Spivey
    Hooker
    30040402    		 60k Photograph of the Spanish flagged SS Panama underway, date unknown John Spivey
    USAT Hooker
    Hooker
    30040404    		 134k
    Namesake

    Hooker - Major General Joseph Hooker of General Staff U.S. Volunteers Infantry Regiment in uniform] / From photographic negative in Brady's National Portrait Gallery
    Library of Congress Digital ID: (digital file from original item, front) ppmsca 40656 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.40656     		Tommy Trampp
    Hooker
    300404001    		 64k USAT Hooker underway, date and location unknown  
    There is no history record available for USAT Hooker at NavSource
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications - CS Hooker
    Aurora Daily Express, Apr. 5, 1899 "Army's First Cable Ship"
    Back To The Navsource Photo Archives Main Page Back To The US Army Ship Index Back To The US Army Cable Repair Ship Index
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    This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo
    All pages copyright NavSource Naval History
    Last Updated 5 May 2024