SS Mauna Loa - Career

Career

After completion, West Conob was inspected by the 12th Naval District of the United States Navy for possible naval service and was assigned the identification number of 4033. Had she been commissioned, she would have been known as USS West Conob (ID-4033), but the Navy neither took over the ship nor commissioned her.

Little information on the first years of West Conob's career is found in sources. But it is known that she was operated by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company on Pacific routes. The ship departed Los Angeles on her maiden voyage to Hong Kong, making her way to San Francisco. West Conob departed from there on 13 June 1919 for Honolulu, where she arrived eight days later. After refueling at Honolulu, she headed to Hong Kong, and from there, retraced her route to return to San Francisco. Details of later voyages are not available, but by mid-April 1921, West Conob had completed two circumnavigations without needing to stop for repairs. At that time, the allocated West Conob for service to Genoa.

In December 1925, West Conob was allocated to Swayne & Hoyt Lines for service to the east coast of South America. By mid-1926, West Conob was sailing for Swayne & Hoyt's American-Australian-Orient Line when she was reported in the Los Angeles Times as sailing to New Zealand with 350,000 square feet (33,000 m2) of wallboard.

In October 1927, the Los Angeles Times reported on the impending sale of West Conob and 18 other Swayne & Holt ships to a San Francisco financier. The ship later became a part of the fleet of the Oceanic and Oriental Navigation Company, a joint venture between Oceanic-Matson, a subsidiary of Matson Navigation Company, and the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, established to take over operation of transpacific routes that had been managed for the by Swayne & Holt Lines. Some time after March 1928, the ship was renamed Golden Eagle, the name under which she operated for the next six years. Golden Eagle was sailing for Oceanic and Oriental from Los Angeles to Australia in March 1930, when the Los Angeles Times reported that she had sailed with 6,700 long tons (6,800 t) of case oil and 200 long tons (200 t) of general merchandise.

In March 1934, Matson began a new "sugar, molasses and pineapple service" from Hawaii to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and either Philadelphia or New York, featuring Golden Eagle and three other cargo ships. In May, after returning from New York on her first voyage in the new service, Golden Eagle entered drydock at Los Angeles for general repairs and repainting. She emerged in Matson livery and with the new name of Mauna Loa. She sailed on her maiden voyage under her new name to Honolulu with 4,500 long tons (4,600 t) of general cargo in late May. Mauna Loa continued on the Hawaii–California–Philadelphia/New York service, occasionally making extra voyages from Los Angeles to Honolulu when dictated by cargo bookings. One such extra voyage occurred in February 1936 when she carried almost a full load of building materials for family dwellings in Hawaii.

In August 1936, Mauna Loa diverted to respond to a distress call issued by the windjammer Pacific Queen some 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) southwest of Los Angeles. Pacific Queen had sailed from San Diego in July with a crew of 32—most of whom were Sea Scouts—and had been missing for two weeks. Mauna Loa's crew provided required supplies for the sailing vessel and her radioed messages prompted the United States Coast Guard to recall all of its vessels actively searching for Pacific Queen.

On 18 November 1941, the War Department chartered Mauna Loa and seven other ships to carry supplies to the Philippines. Even though details of the charters were deemed confidential, the names of all eight ships were published in the Los Angeles Times two days later.