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Requisitioned Ships: Illustrations

Great Lakes Engineering Works, River Rouge (Ecorse), Mich.


Requisitioned: 21 ships: Yard nos. 168-170 (3), plus 2 as Design 1060 and 16 as Design 1042.
The requisitioned precursors to the EFC designs are documented with those designs (q.v.).


Click on the photographs below to prompt larger views of the same images.

Two ships each 5500 tons dwt., building for Cie. Algerienne de Nav. (168) and Soc. Nationale d'Affretements (169)

S.S. Souk Ahras, later Florence H. (Yard no. 168)

Photographed at the Ashtabula, Ohio, plant of the Great Lakes Engineering Works ready to be cut in half forward of the bridge to exit the Great Lakes. She was built as an oversized Three Islander type at the company's Ecorse, Michigan, plant and had been sold while on the ways to the French Cie. des Chemins de Fer de Paris a Lyons et de Mediterranee. After "bulkheading" she departed the yard on 11 September 1917, was reassembled at Montreal, and was delivered to the EFC on 23 October 1917. The Shipping Board renamed her for the wife of its chairman, Edward N. Hurley. She was inspected by the Navy on 18 March 1918 but not taken over. She blew up on 17 April 1918 while delivering ammunition from the U.K. to Saint Nazaire, France.

Photo No. 165-WW-498A-062
Source: U.S. National Archives, RG-165-WW
  Souk Ahras, later Florence H.
S.S. S.N.A. 4, later Lake Tahoe and USS Evansville (Yard no. 169)

This ship departed her building yard at Ecorse on 17 October 1917, was bulkheaded at Ashtabula, and was reassembled at Montreal like her sister. She was delivered to the EFC on 1 December 1917. The Shipping Board renamed her Lake Tahoe. The Navy chartered her on 20 December 1917, inspected her on 28 December 1917, commissioned her on 16 February 1918, renamed her Evansville on 25 November 1918, and decommissioned her on 23 August 1919. "S.N.A." stood for her original owner, the French Societe Nationale d'Affretements, which had been founded in 1916 by the railway company PLM (Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee) for the transport of coal imported from England. Click here for a plan. See her WWI page.

Photo No. NH 70461
Source: U.S. Naval Historical Center
  S.S. S.N.A. 4, later Lake Tahoe

One ship of 13,000 tons dwt. building for Pittsburg SS, later released to owners.

S.S. August Ziesing (Yard no. 170)

Great Lakes ore carrier. Launched 30 October 1917, entered service 14 April 1918. Specifications: 600'loa, 580'lbp x 60' x 32', 1,900 ihp, 10 knots. Laid up 26 November 1974, scrapping completed November 1986.

Photo No. None
Source: Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University.
  S.S. August Ziesing