SS Kentuckian

SS Kentuckian

SS Kentuckian was a cargo ship built in 1910 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I she was known as USAT Kentuckian in service for the United States Army and USS Kentuckian (ID-1544) in service for the United States Navy. After her Navy career, she reverted to her original name of SS Kentuckian.

She was built by the Maryland Steel Company as first of three ships ordered by the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, and was employed in inter-coastal service via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Panama Canal after it opened. In World War I, USAT Kentuckian carried cargo and animals to France under charter to the U.S. Army. When transferred to the U.S. Navy in December 1918, a month after the Armistice, USS Kentuckian was converted to a troop transport and returned almost 8,900 American troops from France. Returned to American-Hawaiian in 1919, Kentuckian resumed inter-coastal cargo service.

Shortly before World War II, Kentuckian was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and sailed between Trinidad and African ports, between New York and Caribbean ports, and in transatlantic convoys through mid 1944. In mid-July 1944, the ship was scuttled as part of the breakwater for one of the Mulberry artificial harbors built to support the Normandy Invasion.