&sq=Google&lang=en&file=File:USS_Amphion_-_NH_85820.jpg) USS Amphion
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name |
|
| Namesake | |
| Builder | J. C. Teckenborg A. G., Geestemünde, Germany |
| Launched | 24 July 1899 |
| Commissioned | 12 April 1919 (as USS Amphion) |
| Decommissioned | 27 September 1919 |
| Maiden voyage | 20 October 1899 (Bremen—Galveston) |
| Renamed | 1917 |
| Identification | Signal: QGTJ (Köln) |
| Fate | Sold for scrap, 1924 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage | |
| Displacement | 18,000 tons |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 54 ft 3 in (16.54 m) |
| Draft |
|
| Depth | 39 ft 4 in (12.0 m) |
| Decks | 2 full & awning deck |
| Installed power | 6 X Scotch boilers |
| Propulsion | 2 X triple expansion engines |
| Speed | 12 kts. |
| Capacity | 120 2nd, 1,850 3d class passengers |
| Complement | 85 (Navy) |
The first USS Amphion was a former German passenger liner SS Köln for Norddeutscher Lloyd from 1899–1917. Köln had been interned in Boston on the outbreak of war in Europe and confiscated in April 1917 when the United States entered the war. The ship was under the control of the United States Shipping Board (USSB) that allocated commercial type ships to military or civilian use during the war. Köln was renamed Amphion and operated by USSB for the Army as United States Army Chartered Transport (U.S.A.C.T.) Amphion as an animal transport taking mules, horses and general cargo to forces in Europe. At the end of the war the USSB allocated the ship to the Navy, which used the ship from April to September 1919 as a troop transport for returning the United States Expeditionary Force from Europe.
The USSB contracted for the refurbishment of the ship after return by the Navy but the glut of war built ships, many new, resulted in Amphion lying idle from 1920 until sold for scrap in January 1924.