USS West Virginia (ACR-5) - World War I

World War I

Huntington was detached from the Reserve Force and placed in full commission on 5 April 1917. She departed Mare Island on 11 May and steamed to Pensacola, Florida, via the Panama Canal. Detached from the Pacific Fleet after her arrival in Florida on 28 May, she spent the next two months at the Naval Air Station Pensacola, engaging in a series of important early experiments with balloons and seaplanes launched from the deck. The cruiser then sailed for Hampton Roads on 1 August and arrived New York five days later. There, Huntington formed with a convoy of six troopships bound for France departing on 8 September. En route, several balloon observation flights were made, and on one of these on 17 September, the balloon was forced down by a squall and the balloonist became entangled in its rigging. Seeing the emergency, shipfitter Patrick McGunigal jumped overboard to release the pilot from the balloon basket, by then overturned and underwater. For his heroic action, McGunigal was awarded World War I’s first Medal of Honor. The day after the rescue, the convoy was turned over to American destroyers in European waters; and Huntington steamed back to Hampton Roads, arriving 30 September.

After replenishing at Norfolk, Huntington sailed to New York on 5 October to have her catapult and seaplanes removed. She got underway on 27 October and arrived Halifax, Nova Scotia, two days later to embark on a high-level U.S. Commission to confer with the Allies. Presidential envoy, Colonel Edward M. House; Admiral William S. Benson; General Tasker H. Bliss; and other dignitaries took passage in Huntington, arriving Davenport, England on 7 November, to be met by British officials. Huntington departed for New York, via Hampton Roads, arriving on 27 November.

Subsequently, the cruiser returned to the important duty of escorting convoys of troops and supplies to Europe, making nine such voyages to Europe and back from 19 February-13 November 1918. In addition, Huntington made three coastal convoy passages from New York to Hampton Roads. She entered Brooklyn Navy Yard on 17 November for conversion to a troop transport.