USS Wadena

Wadena was a steel-hulled yacht built in 1891 as the personal yacht for Jeptha Home Wade II by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Wade was the grandson of Jeptha Home Wade, the founder of Western Union Telegraph. Wadena was outfitted with a triple expansion steam engine and was also rigged as a schooner for traveling under sail. The steel of her hull ranged from ¼- to ½-inch thickness (6 to 13 mm) and was applied to a steel frame, and her steel decks were covered with wood. The ship was painted white with teak trimming and featured a gilded mermaid as a figurehead at her prow.[3]

In the spring of 1917, the Navy inspected Wadena and acquired her from Wade, of Cleveland, who delivered the ship to the 3d Naval District on 25 May 1917. Designated SP-158, Wadena fitted out at the New York Navy Yard for "distant service" and was commissioned on 14 January 1918.[10]

In company with converted yacht Yacona and tug Mariner, Wadena got underway a half-hour before the end of the forenoon watch on 6 February 1918, for New London, Connecticut. The little convoy encountered ice floes the next day; Mariner towed Wadena on two occasions, the tug having to stop and repair her ice-damaged bow on the second occasion, necessitating Yacona's towing Wadena for a time. Anchoring off New London at the outset, the yacht shifted berths to the Central Vermont Railroad Pier, where she remained until steaming to Newport, Rhode Island, on 22 February. She then coaled from a barge at the coaling station at Melville, Rhode Island, Wadena's crew having to transfer the dusty and dusky fuel into their ship by hand-shovels.[10]

USS Wadena (SP-158) at anchor in either the Azores or Bermuda, c. 1918. The ship in the left distance is probably a Royal Navy cruiser.

Wadena got underway from Newport, bound for Bermuda, on 24 February 1918 in company with Yacona and Mariner, and the tug Lykens. The four ships then rendezvoused with eleven 110-foot submarine chasers soon thereafter. The French tug Mohican accompanied the group, bringing up the rear. As the convoy worked its way down the eastern seaboard, however, Mariner fell progressively astern. She briefly towed the submarine chaser SC-177 before the tug began to founder in a heavy southwesterly gale that sprang up on 26 February. Mariner hoisted the breakdown flag shortly before the end of the forenoon watch and cast loose SC-177. Soon thereafter, at the start of the afternoon watch, Mariner, her seams opened by the pounding sea, her pumps inoperative, and boiler fires put out by the rising water in her engineering spaces, signaled: "We are sinking fast". Wadena stood by to render assistance, her quartermaster noting that the sea was "very rough and running high." After embarking two increments of the doomed tug's crew from life rafts, Wadena sprayed oil on the water to calm the seas, and then brought on board the rest of Mariner's entire complement from three rafts, the last, its occupants having abandoned the tug, decks awash, reaching the yacht's side a half hour before the end of the first dog watch with Lt. (jg.) Martin Miller, Mariner's commanding officer, on board. Later, while the rest of the convoy continued on its passage and Mariner, abandoned, drifted off to sink by day's end, Wadena retrieved SC-177 and ultimately reached the British naval station at Hamilton, Bermuda, on 1 March.[10]

Wadena returned to the east coast of the United States soon thereafter, reaching Charleston, South Carolina, on 10 March 1918. She remained there until 25 March, when she escorted another convoy of submarine chasers to Bermuda, arriving there on 29 March. Assigned to the "special task force" to safeguard the transatlantic passage of submarine chasers slated to operate in European waters, Wadena sailed for the Azores on 15 April in company with seven submarine chasers, the U.S. Army tug Knickerbocker, and the tug Lykens. Making most of the passage under sail, Wadena reached Ponta Delgada, Azores, on 27 April. In company with Yacona and the fuel ship Arethusa, Wadena then sailed for Bermuda on 4 May and reached the British admiralty dockyard there 10 days later. While at Bermuda, she was drydocked for repairs and the application of anticorrosive (Italian Venecium Moravia red) and antifouling (Italian Venecium Moravia gray) paint to her hull. Underway again on 25 May, Wadena sailed for the Azores and returned to Bermuda in company with old consort Yacona and a trio of tugs, Undaunted, Goliah, and Arctic, on 20 June.[10]

Wadena is seen as she appeared shortly before her U.S. Navy service in World War I.

After subsequently taking part in another transatlantic movement of submarine chasers from Bermuda to Europe, Wadena continued on via Ponta Delgada to Gibraltar in a truly allied assemblage, in company with the Italian Navy fuel ship Bronte and three French submarine chasers. Reaching Gibraltar on 31 July 1918, the yacht operated with the U.S. Patrol Squadrons based at that port into the autumn. She performed patrol and escort duties between Gibraltar and Funchal, Madeira; Ponta Delgada and the Canary Islands; and Tangiers and Safi, Morocco. On occasion, she also transported mail and people. After escorting the Naval Overseas Transportation Service cargo vessel Mount Shasta from Ponta Delgada to Gibraltar between 16 and 21 October, Wadena remained at Gibraltar into the second week of November 1918. An hour into the afternoon watch on 11 November, her quartermaster recorded: "At 1:00 (pm) received word that Germany had signed the armistice and that hostilities had ceased at 11:00 a.m."[10]

While the ship lay at Gibraltar, she was inspected by Rear Admiral Albert P. Niblack, Commander, Squadron 2, Patrol Force. Eventually getting underway on 11 December 1918 to return to the United States, she made part of the passage in company with gunboats Sacramento, Paducah, and the Coast Guard cutter Manning. Wadena employed her sails for most of the passage, sailing via Ponta Delgada and Bermuda, and reached New London in company with Manning on 3 January 1919.[10]

Placed in reserve, Wadena remained at New London into the spring of 1919. Although stricken from the Navy Register on 24 April 1919, she remained in commission. As squadron flagship, she departed New London on 5 May 1919, bound for the New York Navy Yard, reaching there the following day in company with converted yachts Wanderer, Corona, Christabel, and Emeline. Later that day, the process of removing her guns and other Navy equipment began. After shifting to the Marine Basin at Brooklyn a week later, Wadena was decommissioned on the afternoon of 19 May 1919.[10]

Offered for sale by the Navy, the ship was awarded to Morris Levinson who paid and received title to Wadena on 3 September 1919. On 8 September 1919, the Navy Department discovered a higher bid from S. H. Johnson of New York City had been received and misfiled, and attempted to rescind the transaction with Levinson by refusing to deliver the yacht to which he held title. Johnson filed suit, with the Navy Department joining as a stakeholder, but the U.S. district court ruled in favor of Levinson. Johnson then appealed to the U.S. court of appeals who threw the Navy out of the suit and reversed the finding, awarding the boat to Johnson. Levinson then appealed to the Supreme Court which, in the case Levinson v. United States, restored the decision of the district court, awarding the boat to Levinson.[11]

Little is known of Wadena’s final years other than she changed hands at least twice more. The yacht was purchased in 1921 by the Aeromarine Plane and Motor Co. of New York, who in turn, sold the ship later in 1921 to Aeromarine Engineering Sales Co. of Keyport, New Jersey. The ship was abandoned and scrapped in 1931.[12]

• Photo gallery of Wadena at NavSource Naval History