Banana Boats

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Banana Boats

In 1930, the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company of New Orleans operated three converted ex-USN Destroyers (the ex-Truxtun (DD14), ex-Whipple (DD15), and ex-Worden (DD16)) which had been acquired in 1920 as banana boats. The success of these three conversions led the company in to seek additional converted destroyers in 1931. Ex-destroyers were highly desirable for banana running: with their shallow draft they were able to travel up Mexican rivers to the plantations, thereby avoiding the time and cost of transporting the bananas by rail to a coastal port for loading; their high speed also eliminated the need for refrigeration because of the short trip of 48 hours from the plantations in Mexico to the New Orleans docks.

From 1917-22 the USN commissioned 273 mass-produced destroyers of the Caldwell, Wickes and Clemsen classes, commonly referred to as Flush Deck Destroyers. Owing to the quantitative limit on total destroyer tonnage imposed by the LNT30, the USN was required to dispose of a significant number of these vessels in the early 1930s.

Four Clemson class destroyers built in 1919-20, Worden (DD288), Putnam (DD287), Osborne (DD295) and Dale (DD290), were stricken from the USN list on 22 October 1930, and sold for scrapping on 14 January 1931 to the Boston Iron and Metal Company, Inc. after being stripped of their ordnance and other equipment.

On 5 February 1931, the purchaser requested permission from the US Navy Department to reduce Worden and Putnam to the condition of hulks and to sell them to the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company of New Orleans for service as banana boats. The plans submitted contemplated completely carrying out the relevant provisions of Section II, Annex II of LNT30, and thereafter re-engining the vessels with diesel engines. This request was approved, and a supplementary agreement signed on 6 February which provided:

(2) That in lieu of scrapping Destroyers Nos. 287 and 288, the U.S.S. Worden and the U.S.S. Putnam, the purchaser is authorized to convert said two vessels to hulks. Said conversion shall, in accordance with the requirements of the London Treaty, consist of removing and landing or else destroying in the ships
and by effecting the following:
(3) The purchaser will notify the Government when the work of converting the U.S.S. Worden and the U.S.S. Putnam to hulks has been finally accomplished and said vessels shall not be turned over to the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company or to any other party until the work of conversion has been inspected by the Government and the Government is satisfied that the work has been completed to conform in every respect with the treaty requirements. Any expense necessary to complete said work to conform to such requirements shall be borne by the purchaser.
(4) The work of converting these vessels to hulks shall be completed not later than December 31, 1936. If notice shall not have been received by July 1, 1936, of the completion of such work, the Government may investigate the progress made thereon, and if in the opinion of the Secretary of the Navy sufficient work has not been performed to ensure complete conversion as aforesaid prior to December 31, 1936, then the Government shall have the right at any time after July 1, 1936, to again take possession or assume control of the vessels and any work thereon and to proceed in such manner as it may deem expedient to complete the work of conversion as above set forth.

In response to a further request from Boston Iron and Metal Company, a similar agreement was signed on 6 May 1931 with respect to Dale and Osborne, and the four ships were reduced to hulks, Worden and Putnam prior to 2 April 1931, and Dale and Osborne prior to 29 July 1931. The Navy Department inspected all four vessels after the work of reduction was completed, and they were found to have been reduced to hulks in strict accordance with the terms of LNT30.

All four vessels were then converted to banana boats for service with the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company, which renamed them Tabasco (ex-Worden), Teapa (ex-Putnam), Matagalpa (ex-Osborne) and Masaya (ex-Dale). The ex-Worden and ex-Putnam were towed to New Orleans for conversion by the Todd Steamship and Dry-Dock Company, while the ex-Osborne and ex-Dale were converted in Baltimore.

The first ship to be converted, Tabasco, ran her trials in September 1931. The ship had only cost $200,000 (including conversion costs), operated with a crew a third the size of contemporary boats, and could complete two round-trips between Mexico and New Orleans a week carrying 25,000 stems per trip.

After the conversion was completed, two of the ex-destroyers (Tabasco and Teapa) were transferred to the Nicaraguan flag (although they were still owned by a US Company). This action was both unauthorised, and a violation of the contractual requirement that such vessels “will be documented promptly under the laws of the United States if [they were] to be operated as … vessel[s] subsequent to sale.”

On 6 June 1932, the British Government queried the status of these destroyers, raising two issues of interpretation of the Naval Treaties. First, it was questioned whether the conversion of the destroyers to merchant vessels after their reduction to hulks was compatible with the intention of LNT30. The British position was that it was not compatible as it had been implied throughout the treaty that the rules for disposal meant final disposal, and that there was no provision permitting reconversion, something confirmed by Annex II, Section 2, Paragraph 1 which states that “a vessel to be disposed of by conversion to a hulk shall be considered finally disposed of …” The British pointed out that Admiral Pratt, USN, had testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Naval Affairs in January 1932 that:

The rules for scrapping are very strict. We have had from time to time calls by commercial companies to turn over some of our old ships to them for use, and we would be very glad to do it, but the terms for scrapping are so stringent that frequently they cannot use them. They can use them as hulks and that is about the only use to which they can put them.

Second, the British argued that having these ships flying a foreign flag was a violation of Article 18 of the Washington Treaty, which forbids the transfer of any vessel of war “in such a manner that such a vessel may become a vessel of war in the navy of any foreign power.” Since vessels originally constructed as warships, even if subsequently put to mercantile use, might easily be readapted for use as warships, the only effective method of ensuring that they do not become a vessel of war in a foreign navy was seen to be to make it a condition of sale that they should not be placed under any foreign mercantile flag.

Stimson forwarded this issue to the Secretary of the Navy (Charles F. Adams), who forwarded it to the Chief of Naval Operations who asked Boston Iron and Metal Company for an explanation. Meanwhile the Judge Advocate General of the Navy corresponded with Standard Fruit regarding the developments.

The US response to this letter agreed with both points. On the matter of the transfer to a foreign flag, steps were immediately taken to require the purchasers of the destroyers to retransfer the vessels to the American register. On the matter of the reconversion of the hulks to merchant vessels, this was attributed to a misconception of the Treaty on the part of the officials charged with the sale of the destroyers. Having sanctioned the conversion of these vessels, the US Government did not have the power to “secure any alteration in the present physical condition of these four vessels,” but the American Government gave an explicit assurance “that the ex-destroyers Worden, Putnam, Osborne and Dale will never be used for naval purposes by this Government.”

The details of this issue were conveyed to the remaining signatories of the WNT by the US on 31 August 1932, and this assurance was accepted by Britain on 21 September 1932 as satisfactorily disposing of this matter.

Tabasco went aground on the Alcaran Reef, 70 miles north of the Yucatan coast, Mexico, on 27 April 1933. The rescue tug Relief was sent to her aid, but the wreck was abandoned when a thorough inspection revealed that the hull damage was so bad that the ship would sink if towed into deeper water.

The remaining three were laid up in New Orleans in 1938. On 5 February 1942, they were sub-bareboat chartered by the US Army from the War Shipping Administration, armed and given army gun crews and fitted out to operate as blockade runners from Hawaii to the beleaguered garrison on Corregidor. They departed New Orleans from 2-18 March 1942, but the War Department cancelled all further efforts to supply the Philippines on April 13, and the three ex-destroyers were in Honolulu when the Philippines surrendered in May 1942.

Masaya and Matagalpa then sailed for Australia. The Matagalpa was badly damaged in a fire in Sydney on 26 June 1942. She was never repaired, and was scuttled off Sydney on 6 September 1947. Masaya operated as a transport in New Guinea waters, participating in the battle for Buna, before being sunk by Japanese bombers off Oro Bay on 28 March 1943.

Teapa returned to the US West Coast and was later assigned to Alaskan duty. On 28 November 1942 while anchored in Resurrection Bay, Alaska, Teapa suffered serious damage from a fire. No longer fit for seagoing duty she was refitted for use as a training ship for instructing Army, Navy and Merchant Marine men in engine operation and anti-aircraft gunnery – serving in Seattle until the end of the war. Returned to her former owners upon demobilisation she was transferred to the McCormack Shipping Corporation in 1947 carrying bananas from the Dominican Republic to Miami until 1950. She was laid up until 1955 when she was finally sold for scrap – the last survivor of the 273 flush deck destroyers.

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