USS Hisko (ID-1953)

USS "Hisko" (ID-1953) was a tanker that served in the United States Navy from 1917 to 1919.

SS "Hisko" was built for the United States Shipping Board by the Chester Ship Building Company, Chester, Pennsylvania, and launched 15 October 1917. Acquired by the U.S. Navy for World War I service, she was designated with Id. No. 1953 and commissioned as USS "Hisko" on 6 December 1917 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lieutenant Commander Louis E. Congdon in command.

After two short runs from New York City to Hampton Roads, Virginia, "Hisko" sailed sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, for England in late December 1917 with a transatlantic convoy. She discharged her cargo of fuel oil into U.S. Navy tanks at Devonport, England, and returned to the United States. She left Norfolk on her second eastbound voyage on 26 January 1918, arriving in Plymouth, England, through severe winter storms on 12 February 1918. She returned to New York on 8 March 1918.

In the following year and a half, the tanker made eleven similar voyages carrying fuel oil to American ships in such scattered points as Devonport, England; Brest, France; the Panama Canal Zone; Ponta Delgada in the Azores; Glasgow, Scotland; and Newfoundland. "Hisko" took on oil at New York for most of this period, although she did make three trips to the Gulf of Mexico to load fuel at Port Arthur, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Several ships in her convoys, including a French cruiser, were torpedoed by German U-boats, but "Hisko" escaped unscathed with her valuable cargo.

In May 1919, "Hisko" was detached from the Naval Overseas Transportation Service to support the Transatlantic Flying Expedition, in which the U.S. Navy flying boat NC-4 made the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an American aircraft. "Hisko" was one of the tankers that supplied fuel to the three flying boats and to the destroyers involved in this historic operation.

"Hisko" returned to New York from her final overseas trip in U.S. Navy service on 28 September 1919. She decommissioned there on 1 October 1919 and was returned to the United States Shipping Board. As SS "Hisko", she entered commercial service and was renamed SS "Beta" in 1925. She was scrapped at Baltimore, Maryland, in 1948.

References

External links

* [http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-h/id1953.htm Department of the Navy: Naval Historical Center: Online Library of Selected
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