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Identification Numbered Civilian Ships Photo Archive

Hoven (ID 4341-B)



Civilian call sign:
Love - Quack - Sail - Pup

Call sign (1919):
Nan - Item - Tare - George
Tanker:

  • Built in 1919 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Co., Sparrows Point, MD for the United States Shipping Board (USSB)
  • Acquired by the Navy 16 May 1919 at Sparrows Point and commissioned USS Hoven (ID 4341-B) the same day
  • Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy Register 8 September 1919 at New York and returned to the USSB
  • Sold in 1927 and renamed Beaconhill
  • Scrapped in 1950.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 14,530 t.
  • Length 453'
  • Beam 56'
  • Depth of hold 33' 6"
  • Draft 26'
  • Speed 11 kts.
  • Complement 67
  • Propulsion: Two 2,600ihp steam engines, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS Hoven (ID 4341-B)
    Hoven 129k Moored at the 69th Street Pier, Brooklyn, NY Jay Milewski
    Beaconhill
    Hoven/Beaconhill 44k Standard Oil Co. tanker SS Beaconhill underway
    Photo from World War II U.S. Navy Armed Guard and World War II U.S. Merchant Marine website    		 Robert Hurst
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Hoven, a tanker, was built by the Bethlehem Ship Building Co., Sparrows Point, Md.; and commissioned there 16 May 1919, Lt. Comdr. Alexander MacKenzie in command.

    After loading fuel oil at Bayonne, N.J., the tanker sailed for Europe on 23 May, reaching Horta, Azores, on 31 May and continuing on to Brest on 5 June. At both ports she refueled American warships, and then returned to New York on 22 June. Hoven sailed to Port Arthur for fuel oil and from 22 July to 9 August transited the Atlantic to Brest. She returned to New York on 31 August and decommissioned there 8 September 1919. Hoven was delivered to the USSB the day she decommissioned. Hoven was sold to Beacon Oil Co., Boston, Mass., in 1927 and renamed Beaconhill.

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