* Capt. JG wrote, On 3/5/2007 12:47 PM:
....
Great Jeff. Now, if you can, name the first US Navy ship to be lost by
enemy action in WWI (for another 2 pts of course!).

The submarine Skate was the first lost, but that wasn't enemy action.

The first ship was the USS Cassin, a destroyer. But a few weeks later the
steam yacht Alcedo was sunk.

The first navy ship lost to Germany in WWII was the destroyer USS Reuben
James, on 31. October, 1941, five weeks before Pearl Harbor.

My farther-in-law was on one of the last ships sunk in the Atlantic, the
US Oklahoma, on March 31, 1945.


The Cassin was in WWII. The Alcedo was the first in WWI. The interesting
part is that it was a converted sailing ship I believe.


There were two USS Cassin's, one in WWI and one in WWII. The one from
WWI was torpedoed, and thus was the first naval casualty. However,
she was salvaged, and therefore would not count as "lost."

October 15, 1917: U. S. S. Cassin (destroyer), displacement 1,139
tons; torpedoed by German submarine U-105, off the coast of Ireland,
20 miles south of Mine Head; salvaged; 1 killed and 9 wounded.

November 5, 1917: U. S. S. Alcedo (converted yacht), gross 983 tons;
torpedoed and sunk by enemy submarine (UC-type), 75 miles off the
French coast; 21 killed.
http://www.usmm.org/ww1navy.html


I always thought the Alcedo was built as a steam yacht, but she
certainly has the lines of a sailboat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Alcedo_(SP-166)

It must have been something to serve in the Navy during WWII. I can't really
imagine it.

Although some of the stories my FIL wrote down seem hard, he never
wrote about the worst trip, PQ-18. From the bits and pieces I've
gleaned there was, amongst other events, close in fighting with a
submarine that tried to ram them that haunted him all his life.