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USS Maryland (ARC-8), Cruiser |
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The second MARYLAND (ACR-8) was laid down by the
Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va.,
7 October 1901; launched 12 September 1903; sponsored by
Miss Jennie Scott Waters; and commissioned 18 April 1905,
Capt. R. R. Ingersoll in command.
In October 1905, following shakedown, MARYLAND joined
the Atlantic Fleet for operations along the east coast and
in the Caribbean, where she took part in the 1906 winter
maneuvers off Cuba. The next summer, she conducted a
training cruise for Massachusetts Naval Militiamen, and then
readied for transfer to the Pacific. Departing Newport 8
September 1906. she sailed, via San Francisco and Hawaii,
for the Asiatic station where she remained until October
1907. She then returned to San Francisco and for the next
decade she cruised throughout the Pacific, participating in
survey missions to Alaska (1912 and 1913); carrying
Secretary of State Knox to Tokyo for the funeral of Emperor
Meiji Tenno (September 1912); steaming off the Central
American coast to aid, if necessary, Americans endangered by
political turmoil in Mexico and Nicaragua (1913, 1914, and
1916); and making numerous training cruises to Hawaii and
the South-Central Pacific.
When Congress declared war on Germany, 6 April 1917,
the armored cruiser, renamed FREDERICK, 9 November 1916, was
en route from Puget Sound to San Francisco. Taking on men
and supplies at the latter port, she got underway for the
Atlantic. From May 1917 through January 1918, she patrolled
the southeastern Atlantic off the coast of South America.
On 1 February, she was assigned to escort duty in the North
Atlantic and until the signing of the Armistice she convoyed
troopships east of the 37th meridian. By 20 November, she
was attached to the Cruiser and Destroyer Force and before
mid-1919 had completed six round trips returning troops from
France. Detached from that duty, she entered the
Philadelphia Navy Yard where she was briefly placed in
reduced commission.
FREDERICK crossed the Atlantic again, carrying the U.S.
Olympic Team to Antwerp, Belgium, as she conducted a naval
reservist training cruise in July of 1920. At the end of
that year she returned to the Pacific Fleet. Serving as
flagship of the Train, Pacific Fleet, for the next year, she
conducted only one lengthy cruise, to South America in March
1921. Operations off the west coast took up the remainder
of her active duty career and on 14 February 1922 she
decommissioned and entered the Reserve Fleet at Mare Island.
She was struck from the Naval Register 13 November 1929 and
sold 11 February 1930.
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