💡 Interesting Facts
the cargo ship MV Virginian, now under contract to Military Sealift Command, was accidentally hit by an Exocet missile while unloading cargo in Iraq in 1986.the cargo ship SS Minnesotan carried five racing yachts from the East Coast to national championship races in Los Angeles.the 1910 American cargo ship SS El Oriente was chartered by the Red Cross and was one of fourteen ships that sailed under the Swiss flag during World War II.one of the first acts of the Second World War on the continent of North America was the seizure of the German cargo ship Christoph Van Doornum by the Sheriff of Botwood.many of the freighters built by Skinner & Eddy for World War I service—including Edenton, West Cressey, West Elcajon, West Gotomska, West Hosokie, West Loquassuck, West Mahomet and Western Front (pictured)—were quickly commissioned into the United States Navy on completion.the cargo ship Nikolai Bauman was scuttled in 1964 with a load of nuclear waste.the British cargo ship Empire Builder was handed over to the Polish Government on completion in January 1942.when the Finnish cargo ship SS Enso was lengthened in 1955–56, her gross register tonnage was reduced.under the command of Georg Ritter von Trapp, the World War I Austro-Hungarian Navy U-boat SM U-14 sank the Italian steamship Milazzo (pictured), reported as the largest cargo ship in the world.the sinking of the year-old American cargo ship SS Washingtonian with her $1,000,000 cargo of raw sugar in January 1915 contributed to a 9% rise in the price of sugar in the United States.the Thanksgiving 1984 Nor'easter (pictured) deposited a 197-foot Venezuelan freighter in the backyard of a Palm Beach, Florida socialite, where it remained for several months.in August 1936, the Matson Navigation Company cargo ship SS Mauna Loa came to the aid of a windjammer that was crewed by Sea Scouts and had been missing for two weeks.in 1929, the American cargo ship SS West Alsek became the first steamship powered solely by pulverized coal-fired boilers to cross the Atlantic Ocean.American cargo ship MS West Honaker was the first diesel-powered ship to circumnavigate the globe.American cargo ship SS Iowan rammed and sank two ships, one on each coast of the United States.American cargo ship MS West Grama (pictured), while in the service of the U.S. Navy in 1919, was the first American-flagged ship to enter Bulgarian waters.cargo ship USS West Ekonk was laid down, launched, and completed in 73 working days in 1918, becoming the ninth-fastest-constructed ocean-going ship in the world.cargo ship SS West Nohno was the first American merchant vessel to be armed for service in the Atlantic during World War II.American cargo ship SS Panaman once delivered 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of canned hominy to Los Angeles.SS Dakotan (pictured), a 1910 American cargo ship, was transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease during World War II and continued sailing into the 1960s.early in World War I, the cargo ship SS Montanan of the then-neutral United States, was fired upon and stopped by a Japanese warship.at the time of her completion in 1918, American cargo ship West Lianga held the distinction of being both the fastest-launched and the fastest-constructed ocean-going ship in the world.SS Pennsylvanian, an American cargo ship, was one of the first two steamships to travel eastbound through the Panama Canal after it opened in August 1914.SS Empire Simba, a British cargo ship, was severely damaged in port by a land mine dropped by a German bomber during the World War II.cargo ship El Occidente fought off two German submarines in World War I, only to be sunk by one in World War II.