USS West Bridge

To replace shipping tonnage lost to German submarines during World War I, the British Shipping Controller sought newly built ships from American shipyards. As part of of shipping which had been ordered by March 1917, Because the United States had not yet entered World War I, the Shipping Controller could not order the ships directly and so, to skirt neutrality laws, these orders were made on the government's behalf by the Cunard Steamship Company. The Duthie company laid down the keel of War Topaz as the eleventh ship begun at their shipyard. included among those was War Topaz. Just a bit over one month later, on 26 May, the finished West Bridge was delivered to the United States Navy. As completed, the steel-hulled three-hold ship was long (between perpendiculars), abeam, and drew . West Bridge had a displacement of , and her depth of hold allowed the ship to be rated at . The ship was powered by a single steam turbine engine of , built by the De Laval Steam Turbine Company in Trenton, New Jersey. allowing the single screw propeller to move the ship at up . For her U.S. Navy service in World War I, West Bridge was equipped with one and one gun. == Military career ==

USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was commissioned into the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS) at the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 26 May. West Bridge took on an initial load of flour and departed 10 June for the East Coast. Along the way, the ship developed troubles with her engine, which required putting in at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone for repairs. Getting underway again on 4 July, West Bridge sailed for New York, arriving on 16 July. Escorted by armed yacht , destroyers and , and French cruiser Marseillaise, the convoy was west of its destination of Le Verdon-sur-Mer by the end of the day on 15 August. Torpedo attack At 17:40, West Bridges engine broke down once again and her crew was unable to repair it. Falling off the back of the convoy and adrift, she signaled Marseillaise to request a tow. At sundown, shortly before 18:00, Montanan—still in the convoy, which was by now ahead of West Bridge—was hit by one of three torpedoes launched by German submarine . Montanan began to settle and was quickly abandoned. On West Bridge, Lieutenant Commander Hawkins realized the potential for another submarine attack and ordered his crew to general quarters and reduced the number of men in the mechanical spaces below decks. Noma sailed back to West Bridge, ordered the freighter to extinguish her lights, and stood by. At nearly the same time, approached and launched two torpedoes at the stationary cargo ship, scoring hits with both. The first struck near the No. 3 cargo hold forward, destroying the cargo ship's wireless, the second amidships near the engine room. West Bridge immediately began listing to starboard, and Hawkins ordered the crew to abandon ship. He and two crewmen remained behind until he felt sure that everyone else had departed. By the time the three left the stricken ship, water was up to the gunwales and lapping at the well deck. Carpenter's Mate, 3rd class Walter Homer Todd, and Coxwain John Robert Nuttall, boarded West Bridge and awaited four tugs which had been dispatched from Brest: the U.S. Navy , two French tugs, and one British tug. Over the course of the next five days, the tugs, joined by patrol yacht , slowly towed West Bridge to the French coast, eventually arriving at Brest. The ship was towed over with only 1% buoyancy remaining. The extent of the damage and the condition of West Bridge led to some erroneous reports of her loss. News articles on 24 August in both The New York Times and the Chicago Daily Tribune reported the sinking, and the mistaken information was recorded by authors Benedict Crowell and Robert Forrest Wilson in their work The Road to France: The Transportation of Troops and Military Supplies, 1917–1918. After West Bridge underwent seven months of repairs, the ship resumed service with the NOTS through 1 December 1919, at which time she was decommissioned and handed over to the USSB. == Interwar years ==

The United States Official Number 216348 and Code Letters LKRQ were allocated to the ship. Little is known about West Bridges activities after her return to the USSB in 1919, but in June 1922 she was laid up in Philadelphia, where she remained for almost seven years. In March 1929, the USSB approved the sale of West Bridge for $57,000 to the Sudden & Christenson of San Francisco. Barbara Cates nine years with the Arrow Line were uneventful. In 1934, her Code Letters were changed to KJOO. By October 1938, the ship had been renamed Pan Gulf to reflect the naming style of her new owners, the Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company, a subsidiary of Waterman Steamship Company. The Pan-Atlantic Line sailed in coastal service along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and it is likely that Pan Gulf called at typical Pan-Atlantic ports such as Baltimore, Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston during this time. In October 1941, The Christian Science Monitor reported that Pan Gulf had become stuck in the mud off Governors Island after her crew misjudged how far to back out of her berth at the Army base there. The first, unsuccessful attempt to free Pan Gulf involved eight tugs, but the ship did not budge. The newspaper, which had also reported that there was no apparent damage to Pan Gulf in the grounding, carried no further reports on the ship. == World War II and later career ==

After the United States entered World War II, Pan Gulf frequently sailed in convoys on the North Atlantic, as well as some in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. Between April and September 1942, Pan Gulf made two roundtrips from the U.S. to Liverpool. In September, the cargo ship sailed from New York to the Caribbean to take on a load of bauxite in early November, and then sailed on to Galveston, Texas, before returning to New York in mid-February 1943. On 5 May 1945, the USMC turned over Pan Gulf to the Far East Shipping Company (FESCO) of the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease; FESCO renamed the ship Lermontov (, ) after the poet Mikhail Lermontov. The Soviets armed the ship with a gun and other weapons and employed her in cargo duties in support of the war. At war's end, Lermontov remained with FESCO through 1950. At that time she was transferred to the Black Sea Shipping Company, with which she remained into the 1960s. Lermontov was delivered to shipbreakers Brodospas in Split, Yugoslavia on 26 June 1966. == Notes ==