USS Hannibal, a 4000-ton collier, was completed in 1898 at Sunderland, England, as the commercial steamship Joseph Holland. The crisis leading to the Spanish-American War resulted in her purchase by the U.S. Navy in mid-April of that year and the ship was placed in commission that June. She carried coal in support of the Navy's operating forces during the rest of the short conflict, and continued that vital work along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean area during the next dozen years.
In mid-1911 Hannibal was converted to a surveying ship, serving in the Caribbean and along the Central American coast until the United States entered World War I in April 1917. For much of the war's first year she was attached to the Atlantic Fleet's Patrol Force, with her missions including assisting submarine chasers and other ships as they made the long passage to the European war zone. In 1918 Hannibal became a submarine chaser tender at Plymouth, England, a job she held until after the 11 November Armistice halted the fighting. Late in the year she began escorting subchasers back to the Western Hemisphere, by way of the Azores, and also served in the Caribbean before being laid up in mid-1919.
Hannibal was classified as a "miscellaneous auxiliary" in July 1920, with the hull number AG-1. Recommissioned some months later, she resumed her survey service early in 1921, primarily operating in the Caribbean. This work continued through the next two decades and lasted into World War II. She was also employed on the Chesapeake Bay degaussing range during the war. In August 1944 the now very elderly USS Hannibal was placed out of commission. She was sunk as a bombing target in March 1945.
This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have concerning USS Hannibal.
Other photographs concerning this ship can be seen in:
For additional photographs concerning this ship's Caribbean
area surveying activities, see:
For photographs related to USS Hannibal's November
1917 trip from the U.S. to the Azores, see:
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.
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Hannibal (AG-1). The following list features this image:
The image listed below is NOT in the
Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our
page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".
USS Hannibal (AG-1) underway off the Norfolk Navy Yard, Virginia, 26 November 1941. Starboard broadside surface view. The ship is in Camouflage Measure 1, with a hull, superstructure and masts painted a relatively dark grey up to the level of her smokestack top, and very light grey or white above that.
Reproductions of this image should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center. The image listed in this box is NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions". |
Other photographs concerning this ship can be seen in:
For additional photographs concerning this ship's Caribbean
area surveying activities, see:
For photographs related to USS Hannibal's November
1917 trip from the U.S. to the Azores, see:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 16 November 2004
New image added 18 November 2005