SS Mongolia (1903)

SS "Mongolia" was a 13,369-ton passenger-and-cargo liner originally built for Pacific Mail Steamship Company in 1904. She later sailed as USS "Mongolia" (ID-1615) for the U.S. Navy, as SS "President Fillmore" for the Dollar Line and as SS "Panamanian" for Cia Transatlantica Centroamericano.

Ordered by E.H. Harriman's Pacific Mail Steamship Co. for its San Francisco-Far East service, "Mongolia" was laid down on 7 June 1902 in Shipway J at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, New Jersey. The 615-foot vessel was contract #5 for the young company, and the first passenger-cargo liner built by the firm. A sister ship, SS|Manchuria, was ordered at the same time and delivered three months after "Mongolia." The accommodations of both ships reflected the importance of emigration to shipping lines of the era: 350 first-class, 68 second-class, and 1,300 steerage.

In 1915 Pacific Mail sold "Mongolia" to Atlantic Transport Co., for whom she plied the New York-London route. Following the German declaration of a submarine blockade around Britain, "Mongolia" received a self-defense armament of three convert|6|in|mm|adj=on deck guns manned by U.S. Navy gun crews. One month later, "Mongolia" became the first American vessel to test the blockade, using those guns to drive off (and possibly sink) a U-boat seven miles southeast of Beachy Head, in the English Channel. That was the first armed encounter for an American vessel after the US's entry to World War I.

For the next year, "Mongolia" ferried American troops and supplies to Europe under a civilian flag. On 27 April 1918, the US Navy requisitioned the vessel, which was commissioned 8 May as USS "Mongolia" (ID-1615). She served as a troop transport, completing twelve turnarounds at an average duration of 34 days before her decommissioning 11 September 1919. According to an article dated 22 May 1917 in the "Chicago Tribune" 2 American nurses, Edith Ayers and Helen Wood, were accidently killed during one of these crossings.. The women were on the deck of the Mongolia observing the firing of various weapons when they were struck by fragments of the 6-inch gun's propellant caps which had ricocheted off a stanchion. cite DANFS | title = Mongolia | url = http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m13/mongolia.htm | accessdate = 2008-05-07 ]

Returned to civilian service, "Mongolia" sailed the New York-Hamburg route under charter to the American Line. She was purchased in 1923 by the Panama Pacific Line and placed into service on its New York-San Francisco route (via the Panama Canal). In 1929, Dollar Steamship Lines acquired "Mongolia" and her sister ship "Manchuria" for its east-to-west round-the-world service, renaming them "President Fillmore" and "President Johnson", respectively.

The former "Mongolia" sailed for only two years with the Dollar Line. With the onset of the Great Depression, she was laid up in New York, and when the Dollar Line collapsed in 1938 ownership passed to the newly created American President Lines. She never sailed under the APL pennant, however, and was sold in 1940 to Cia Transatlantica Centroamericana of Panama, which renamed her "Panamanian". She was scrapped in Shanghai, China, 20 May 1946.

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