Return to Naval Historical Center home page. Return to Online Library listing

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060


Online Library of Selected Images:
-- CIVILIAN SHIPS --

Cargo Ship West Maximus (1918)

West Maximus, a 12,225-ton steam cargo ship, was built in 1918 at Seattle, Washington. It was intended that she would become USS West Maximus (ID # 3924), but the Navy's need for her evaporated with the end of World War I and she was not taken over. The ship operated as a merchantman for the rest of her career. During World War II, West Maximus carried cargo in support of the European war effort. She was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-264 on the night of 4-5 May 1943, while crossing the Atlantic westbound with Convoy ONS-5.

This page features our best view of the cargo ship West Maximus.


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 100257-A

West Maximus
(U.S. Freighter, 1918)

Photographed immediately after her launching, at the Skinner & Eddy Corp. shipyard, Seattle, Washington, on 28 December 1918.
She was to have been taken over by the U.S. Navy as USS West Maximus (ID # 3924) but was completed too late for this to take place.

The original is in National Archives' Record Group 19-LCM.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 55KB; 740 x 465 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

21 January 2001