WWI Victory Medal for U.S.S. Leviathan officer, does he rate a Transport Clasp?

[decwriter]

I'm not well versed on the US Navy side of the house so am seeking opinions on whether this officer rated a Transport Clasp on his WWI Victory Medal. I located the "Operating from to" dates of the ship.

 

In the second card, do his dates of 10-21-18 to Det Third Naval District, to duty "Leviathan" automatically qualify him for the clasp?  His service file lists the WWI Victory Medal but doesn't reflect a clasp or a bronze service star but that may be normal.  

 

See cards and pic of the roster. I'd appreciate any assistance.

 

 

[atb]

Images not showing.

[decwriter]

Let's try this again. I may be overthinking this but I'm not sure if one day or more on the ship equals service credit. I'd like to be 100% sure though.  

 

[EGA-DOG]

I would say that he was rated a Trasport bar. Judging by the ships travel history. 

[bulldog06]

I would also think that a Transport clasp would be correct. 

 

I have a grouping that causes me to question how the Navy awarded clasps. The group has a Navy Cross awarded to the "Commanding Officer of the U.S.S. DOLPHIN and Senior Aide to the Commander, U. S. Patrol Detachment Atlantic Fleet, during World War I".  The Dolphin was a patrol craft operating in the Caribbean area.

 

The Victory medal has the Transport clasp. I found no indication that the officer had any service in transport ships.

 

Mike

 

 

[decwriter]

EGA-DOG and bulldog6, thanks for weighing in.

[aerialbridge]

The NY WWI Service Abstracts on ancestry.com are a great resource for researching NY residents who served in the Navy during  the "Great War."  I don't know of any other state other than maybe PA where you can generally deduce online what WWI Victory service clasp a Navy serviceman might have had without ordering their OPF from NARA St. Louis.  Like the cards for Hilliard posted here (b. Asheville, NC),  my great-uncle (b. Mapleton, MN) became a NYC transplant and a couple years later enlisted in the Navy at 23 for four years, serving from 1912-16.    I'm posting his NY service abstract cards as an illustration of the case where a man was attached  (given orders, as opposed to being a passenger in transit)  to more than one ship during  WWI and so might qualify for more than one service clasp, as my ancestor did.   The Navy only officially issued one clasp and didn't authorize wearing more than one Victory Medal service clasp on the medal's drape.   My uncle finished his four-year hitch in July 1916 and was honorably discharged as a quartermaster 2nd class (QMC2) having served primarily on destroyers.    Less than a year later, he volunteered for duty in May 1917.  Given his prior service he was rated  a quartermaster chief petty officer (QMC) in the newly created US Naval Reserve Force (USNRF) and assigned to shore duty at the Newport, RI Naval Training Station.    He was antsy to get back to sea and join the fray in the North Atlantic and wrote to request "duty in the War Zone".  His request was ignored  since he was regarded as more useful training new recruits.  He was promoted to ensign in January 1918 and that April they finally detached him from shore training duty at Newport and ordered him to the USS Arizona, then only a couple years old and deemed too valuable to risk sending overseas to face the perils of the U-boat wolf-packs.   During WWI, Arizona was used for ceremonies and as a gunnery training ship.  My uncle was assigned to command one of the five inch gun crews for five months, from May to September 1918.   Near the end of the war,  his request to go to the "War Zone"  was finally honored and he was attached to the mine-layer USS Saranac, one of ten converted mine-layers in the all-volunteer Mine Squadron One, operating from Inverness, Scotland.   So while his five months on USS Arizona sailing up and down the Atlantic Coast qualified him for the "Atlantic Fleet" clasp,  his subsequent six weeks on USS Saranac before Armistice Day qualified him for the scarcer "Mine Laying" clasp which is what the Navy issued him.    I've not studied the regs, but my assumption based on my uncle's service and the single service clasp he was issued for his WWI Victory medal is that if a man qualified for more than one clasp, the Navy issued the one for the latest service.   Also, I believe that even a single day's duty attached to a qualifying ship during the qualifying period would rate a service clasp for the WWI Victory medal.  If either of these assumptions are wrong, I trust someone will correct it.

 

 

 

[decwriter]

aerialbridge, I appreciate your very detailed response and contribution to the discussion of clasps for the USN in WWI and for showing your great-uncle’s cards. I’m confident now that Hilliard earned the Transport clasp for his time on the ship after seeing the three responses to this post. From what I have gathered so far, he led a very interesting life and I’ll post a write-up in the medals section in the future to share his history.

Thanks again.

[aerialbridge]

Glad to contribute to your post and I agree, Hilliard most certainly would have been issued a Transport service clasp.   I did a little research on Hilliard and he seems to have been a fascinating guy and somewhat of a financial mover and shaker.    The Vanderbilts and other wealthy New York families have flocked to Asheville for more than a century so I was wondering if he was a real tarheel or a New Yorker born at Asheville.  Look forward to reading your post about him!   Here's the numbers for issuance of the various service clasps.