USS Lebanon, a 1486 gross ton (3375 tons displacement) freighter, was built in 1894 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Co. as S.S. Lebanon. She was purchased by the Navy in April 1898 and placed in commission as USS Lebanon for service as a collier in the Spanish-American War. The ship arrived off the Cuban coast in early June 1898 and provided coal to U.S. naval forces there. After additional operations in the Caribbean and along the Atlantic coast Lebanon decommissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard in April 1899. Placed back into commission at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 1905, Lebanon again operated as a collier along the East Coast and in the Caribbean until decommissioned at Norfolk in October 1909.
When Lebanon was recommissioned in July 1911 she was assigned a new role, supporting the Atlantic Fleet's gunnery training. After transporting ammunition between East Coast ports during 1911, she participated the Fleet's 1912 Caribbean winter maneuvers, towing gunnery targets during battle practices and repairing the targets between exercises. Lebanon's primary duty continued to be target towing and repair through and after World War I, although she was also occasionally used as an ammunition transport and as a tender. Designated a miscellaneous auxiliary, AG-2, in July 1920, the ship was decommissioned in February 1922 and sold in June 1922. She returned to merchant service as S.S. Taboga in 1922, was renamed Homestead in 1926, and foundered in Humber Arm, Newfoundland, in July 1932.
This page features all the views we have concerning USS Lebanon and S.S. Lebanon, Taboga, and Homestead.
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If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 30 April 2008