Apparently a converted cattle ship that transported troops from Hoboken, New Jersey, to France during WW I. I'm looking for a photo or some more background info on the ship.

 

Thanks.

There is no listing in the Navy Dictionary of Ships for this vessel. You show the name as SS Vaubin. The SS designates it as a Steam Ship not USS Vaubin which would make it a United States Ship. If the original name was SS Vaubin, and it was converted to a US Navy ship, it would probably have been renamed.

 

Example: During WWI the SS Vaterland was a German liner until seized by the US. After being converted to a troopship it was renamed the USS Leviathan.

 

US Navy ship dictionary is at: http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

 

You may have to copy and paste to your browser.

 

P.S. Today April 11th, 1783 Congress declared the war with Great Britian over.

Thanks very much for that.

 

I searched danfs previously and came up with nothing. I'll do some more digging around.

 

That was the ship Walt Disney went to France on as a member of a Red Cross ambulance detachment. Disney referred to the ship as the Vaubin in an interview he did in the 1950s. On November 18, 1918 the transport left Hoboken New Jersey for France. Cherbourg was blocked by sunken ships, so the vessel sailed for Le Havre, arriving on December 4, 1918.

Hello disneydave,

 

I think it's the SS Vauban.

 

SS Vauban, circa 1914.

 

SS Vauban, launched in 1912,  was a British ocean liner operated by Lambert and Holt Line. In WWI she was a U.S. chartered troopship.

Irl Potter Haynes correspondence, 1918 - 1919.

 

The University of Michigan William L. Clements Library has a collection of over 100 letters Irl Haynes wrote to his wife during, and after, WWI. Mr. Haynes was serving in the Y.M.C.A  in connection with the American Expeditionary Forces.

Mr. Haynes went through transportation training at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; New York City; and Hoboken, New Jersey. He learned how to drive different trucks, and volunteered at the transportation school at Hoboken.

In the letters, he describes armistice celebrations in New York City.

"Around November 18, 1918, Haynes shipped out on board the Lamport and Holt Line, S.S. Vauban, arriving in Paris in early December."