Historic Fleets

Short-Lived Innovation

Her designers envisioned an ocean greyhound, embodying lines "closely resembling those of a finely modeled steam yacht." Fast, safe, reliable, and luxuriously appointed, the triple-screw turbine-powered steamship Great Northern, built for the Spokane, Portland, and Seattle Railway Company in 1914 by William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company in Philadelphia, enjoyed very different operational careers in mercantile and military service. She served as a troop transport during the Great War, and, albeit briefly, as an altogether new type of auxiliary to the U.S. Fleet—an "administrative flagship."

"Brains do not belong in the body," wrote one officer intimately involved in the administrative flagship concept, "they belong in the head." Breaking a commander-in-chief's flag in a battleship limited his sphere of action. Some U.S. naval officers viewed the outcome of the 1916 Battle of Jutland as a direct result of a commander-in-chief's inability to coordinate effectively the movements of his ships in a major fleet action by being tied to a capital ship. As a result, within three years of the end of World War I, the idea of a flagship with sufficient size for the increased complement and speed to proceed where needed became a reality.

In the event of war in the early 1920s, Admiral Hilary P. Jones was to be the commander-in-chief of the U.S. Fleet, an entity that combined both Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Jones, who had relieved Admiral Henry B. Wilson as Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, on 1 July 1921, faced the imminent reassignment of his flagship, the battleship Pennsylvania (BB-38), to the Pacific Fleet. The Navy's desire to try out the concept of the administrative flagship led to a 22 July 1921 executive order that transferred the Great Northern, which had been turned over to the War Department after the war, back to the Navy. Designated as the Administrative Flagship of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, the vessel received the identification number AG-9 on 1 August 1921, placing her among the miscellaneous Navy auxiliaries.

The Great Northern was commissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, on 12 August, Captain Joseph K. Taussig in command.

In the meantime, with the departure of the Pennsylvania for the Pacific, Admiral Jones transferred his flag from the battleship to the yacht Despatch (PY-8) on 20 August "until such time as a suitable flagship could be obtained." The Great Northern then proceeded to the East Coast via the Panama Canal for reconditioning at the New York Navy Yard, reaching her destination on 7 October.

Admiral Jones broke his flag in the Great Northern on 14 November, and five days later, at his request, the ship was renamed the Columbia. The previous Columbia, on the sale list but still in the Navy's inventory, received the name Old Columbia.

The new Columbia then underwent "repairs and alterations to fit her for service as Fleet Administrative Flagship." Prior to her departure from the navy yard, Admiral Jones and his staff had prepared an employment plan for her, encompassing not only inspections of forces afloat but of bases and shore establishments as well.

The Columbia stood out, Admiral Jones' four-star flag at the main, on 7 January 1922, and reached her first destination, Charleston, South Carolina, on the 9th. She remained at anchor while the CinC conducted an inspection of the destroyer squadrons based there, their tenders, and the port, "having in mind the proper basing facilities for those Destroyer Squadrons." The ship proceeded to Key West, Florida, reaching there on 16 January. The admiral inspected that naval station with an eye toward base facilities for submarines. Soon thereafter, the Columbia sailed for Cuban waters.

The ship arrived at Guantanamo Bay on 21 January, joining the Atlantic Fleet. Upon her arrival, however, "the stringency of fuel" resulted in the cancellation of any further inspections.

In the meantime, her sister ship, the Northern Pacific of the Admiral Line, caught fire, capsized, and sank off the entrance to the Delaware River on 8 February while being towed to Chester, Pennsylvania, for reconditioning. Her owner, the energetic, politically astute shipping magnate Hubbard F. Alexander, decided to apply personal political persuasion at the highest level of government to acquire his lost ship's sister.

The Columbia remained at Guantanamo for a little more than a month, "engaged in machinery overhaul . . . fueling, provisioning, drills and granting liberty and recreation." Significantly, as part of the "increasing amount of work . . . performed by the repair facilities afloat," the repair ship Prometheus (AR-3) completed the necessary conversion work on the Columbia, her artificers and workmen installing a new distilling plant and completed telephone installations as well as "many minor items."

Hubbard Alexander's mission to acquire the ship, however, proved successful. On 23 February, Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby formally recommended to President Warren G. Harding that the ship be turned over to the Shipping Board "for such disposition as may commend itself to that branch of the government."

The President greatly appreciated Denby's suggestion, and wrote that it reflected the earnest endeavor of the Navy Department to minimize its expenditures in full harmony with the reduced cost which was the impelling thought on the Limitation of Armament. I am sure this voluntary surrender of the Columbia will appeal to the very cordial approval of the Congress and give renewed assurance to the public that the Navy Department desires to be one hundred per cent efficient, though always mindful of the burden upon the public which inevitably attends its maintenance.

Harding issued the necessary executive order transferring the ship, and the Navy Department ordered the Columbia north, "to arrive not later than 28 February at Chester, Pennsylvania, in order that this vessel might be turned over to the United States Shipping Board."

The Columbia sailed on the evening of 24 February 1922. In obedience to modified orders received en route, the ship put in to the New York Navy Yard on the night of the 27th. Soon thereafter, Admiral Jones, together with his staff and office equipment, shifted his flag to the battleship Maryland (BB-46), to make her his temporary flagship. At 1000 the next morning, the Columbia proceeded to Chester, as ordered, where she was decommissioned on 4 March, and stricken from the Navy Register. Her second period of naval service had lasted one week shy of seven months.

How successful had the concept of an administrative flagship been? Given barely half a year from commissioning to decommissioning, the Columbia's trial had been brief indeed. Admirals continued to fly their flags from battleships and cruisers, not converted passenger liners. Her demise clearly vexed the officer who had commanded her.

Captain Taussig lamented in the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings in August 1922:

It is unfortunate that, after spending considerable time and money fitting up the best ship to be had for the use of an administrative flagship, commercial and political interests forced the Navy to give it up. This the more so as there is not another merchant ship flying the United States flag that has the combination of size, habitability and sea-worthiness, together with the necessary speed, to warrant its conversion for the purpose.

When World War II eventually engulfed the United States, administrative flagships, such as converted yachts, served admirably, but the nature of warfare at sea had changed dramatically. Instead of massive fleet actions envisioned in the wake of World War I, assaults on enemy-held shores and securing beachheads for large-scale invasions assumed great importance. No warship could serve as the nerve center for a major amphibious operation, leading to conversions—like the Columbia's had been—from suitable merchant hulls. For task force flagships, battleships and aircraft carriers filled the bill.

The Columbia, meanwhile, became the H. F. Alexander (named, modestly, in honor of her new owner) in late 1922. Laid up in 1938, she was acquired by the Canadian Pacific Steamship Line in 1941, then by the British Ministry of War Transport in 1942. She returned once again to American ownership, serving another tour as an Army transport and, as the George F. Simonds, participating in her second world war. Ultimately, the graceful liner that had once worn an admiral's four-star flag was dismantled by scrappers near the city of her birth in February 1948.