USS Nokomis (SP-609)
USS Nokomis (SP-609) dockside. | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| United States | |
| Name | Nokomis II (also simply Nokomis) |
| Namesake | Nokomis |
| Owner | Horace E. Dodge of Detroit, Michigan |
| Builder | Pusey & Jones of Wilmington, Delaware |
| Yard number | 360 |
| Laid down | 1916 |
| Launched | 27 December 1916 |
| Completed | April 1917 (trials) |
| Acquired | 1 June 1917 |
| Commissioned | 3 December 1917 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as Nokomis (SP-609) |
| Decommissioned | 25 February 1921 |
| In service | July 1921 |
| Out of service | 15 February 1938 at Norfolk, Virginia |
| Reclassified | USS Nokomis (PY-6) |
| Stricken | 25 May 1938 |
| Identification | Official number 214877 |
| Fate | Scrapped 22 June 1944, Mallows Bay, Maryland |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Yacht |
| Tonnage | 872 GRT |
| Displacement | 1,265 tons |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 31 ft 10 in (9.7 m) |
| Draft | 12 ft 10 in (3.9 m) |
| Depth of hold | 19 ft 6 in (5.9 m) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 triple expansion engines |
| Speed |
|
| Range | 1,517 nmi (1,746 mi; 2,809 km) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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USS Nokomis (SP-609) was a yacht purchased by the U.S. Navy during World War I. The yacht was purchased from Horace E. Dodge of Detroit, Michigan, after he had the yacht luxuriously fitted out but before he could make use of his second Nokomis — the first having already gone into service.
She was outfitted as a patrol craft with 3-inch guns, and assigned to protect commercial shipping in the North Atlantic Ocean from German submarines and Q-ships. Post-war she was returned to the U.S. and decommissioned. Subsequently, she was placed back into service as a Navy survey vessel, a role she maintained for nearly two decades before again being decommissioned and struck from the Navy List in 1938.
The vessel was loaned to the Coast Guard, which assigned the name Bodkin, and was undergoing conversion to a sub chaser in 1943 until the submarine threat lessened and the conversion was stopped. The hulk was towed to Mallows Bay on Maryland's shore of the Potomac River and scrapped in June 1944. The former Nokomis was the only warship among the hulks of burned and salvaged World War I commercial vessels at the "graveyard" and the last to be scrapped there.