USS Orizaba
USS Orizaba was a transport ship for the U.S. Navy in both World War I and World War II. She made 15 transatlantic voyages for the navy carrying troops to and from Europe in WWI. In interwar civilian service, she was chartered to United States Lines. She was transferred under Lend-Lease to the Brazilian Navy in 1945. Duque de Caxias was decommissioned in 1959 and scrapped in 1963.
About USS Orizaba in brief
USS Orizaba was a transport ship for the U.S. Navy in both World War I and World War II. She made 15 transatlantic voyages for the navy carrying troops to and from Europe in WWI. In interwar civilian service, she was chartered to United States Lines. She was transferred under Lend-Lease to the Brazilian Navy in 1945. Duque de Caxias was decommissioned in 1959 and scrapped in 1963. The ship was laid down in 1917 by William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company of Philadelphia and launched in February 1917. It was 423 feet 0 inches long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 60 feet0 inches. She had a depth of 15 feet 7 inches and a draft of 35 feet 0 inch. Propulsion was four steam turbines of 1,908 nhp driving twin screw propellers through single reduction gearing. The refrigerant was brine and insulation was by means of cork. Orizabas executive officer, ordnance expert William Price Williamson, worked closely with Commander Richard Drace White to develop a workable depth charge launcher which would provide the transport with a measure of protection from enemy submarines. In August 1918, a depth charge test with an increased propellant exploded, killing Williamson and four other sailors. Four days later at 08:30 on August 30, traveling with Siboney, Orizabe spotted a submarine in the act of submerging and dropped depth charges, but there was no indication that the attack was successful.
In December 1918, she joined the Cruiser Cruiser Brest Transport Force and was temporarily assigned to assist the French government in repatriating French, Belgian, and Italian prisoners of war. In June 1945, the ship was transferred to Brazil where she served as DuquedeCaxias until she was retired in August 1963. She died in a fire in 1947, but was repaired and remained in service. In 1953, DuqueDeCaxia was permanently transferred to Brazil in 1953, and was scrapped in 1962. In 1959, the Brazilian government decommissioned Orizabas and decontaminated her in 1959, and she was removed from service in 1962. She remained in service until the Brazilian Navy and was scrapped in 1963. Her name was changed to Orizaba in 1973 after she was re-commissioned by the United States Naval Department of Defense as a transport ship for the Army. She also served as an auxiliary in the Brazil Navy after World War II as an auxiliary in 1945, and later as a military ship in the Brazilian Navy after the end of the Second World War. In the 1930s she was in civilian service for the Ward Line. In 1932, poet Hart Crane leapt to his death from the rear deck of the liner off Florida in April 1932.
You want to know more about USS Orizaba?
This page is based on the article USS Orizaba published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
