| − | Bellingham--a steel-hulled, single-screw freighter built for the United States Shipping Board (USSB} during 1918 at Seattle, Wash., by the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Co.--was taken over by the Navy for operation by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), to be manned by a Navy crew under an Army account; given the identification number (Id. No.) 3552; and commissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 30 October 1918, Lt. Comdr. Charles O. W. Lofstrom, USNRF, in command. | + | The [[USS]] Bellingham--a steel-hulled, single-screw freighter built for the United States Shipping Board (USSB} during 1918 at Seattle, [[Washington]], by the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Co.--was taken over by the Navy for operation by the Naval Overseas Transportation Service (NOTS), to be manned by a Navy crew under an Army account; given the identification number (Id. No.) 3552; and commissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 30 October 1918, Lt. Comdr. Charles O. W. Lofstrom, USNRF, in command. |
| | Bellingham sailed for Chile on the morning of 4 November 1918 and--after a brief stop at San Diego, Calif., on 10 November--reached the port of Arica on 28 November. Shifting to Iquique on the 29th, the NOTS freighter loaded a cargo of nitrates there before sailing for Panama on the morning of 6 December. Reaching Balboa, on the Pacific side of the Isthmus, on the 15th, Bellingham transited the Panama Canal that day and left Cristobal the same evening bound for Florida. The ship reached Jacksonville three days before Christmas and discharged her cargo there, remaining in port into the following year. Underway again on 10 January 1919, Bellingham steamed up the coast to Charleston, S.C., where she arrived the following evening. | | Bellingham sailed for Chile on the morning of 4 November 1918 and--after a brief stop at San Diego, Calif., on 10 November--reached the port of Arica on 28 November. Shifting to Iquique on the 29th, the NOTS freighter loaded a cargo of nitrates there before sailing for Panama on the morning of 6 December. Reaching Balboa, on the Pacific side of the Isthmus, on the 15th, Bellingham transited the Panama Canal that day and left Cristobal the same evening bound for Florida. The ship reached Jacksonville three days before Christmas and discharged her cargo there, remaining in port into the following year. Underway again on 10 January 1919, Bellingham steamed up the coast to Charleston, S.C., where she arrived the following evening. |