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Deer Fiftynine

The two submarines of the U-1 class, U-1 and U-2, were built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Constructed according to an American design, they were launched in 1909. A diving chamber, wheels for traveling along the seabed, and other experimental features were tested extensively in sea trials. Their gasoline engines were replaced around the start of World War I over safety and efficiency concerns. The boats have been described by naval historians as obsolete by the time they were commissioned in 1911. Both submarines were mobilized briefly during the Balkan Wars, and otherwise served as training boats before 1915. From 1915 to 1918 they conducted reconnaissance cruises out of Trieste and Pola, though neither sank any enemy vessels during the war. Facing defeat in October 1918, the Austro-Hungarian government transferred the bulk of its fleet, including these submarines, to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to avoid having to hand its ships over to the Allied Powers.
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Deer Fiftynine

The West ships were cargo ships of similar size and design built by several ship

2021-02-19 14:26:30

SS Mauna Loa was a steam-powered cargo ship of the Matson Navigation Company that was sunk in the bombing of Darwin in February 1942. She was christened SS West Conob in 1919 and renamed SS Golden Eagle in 1928. At the time of her completion in 1919, the ship was inspected by the United States Navy for possible use as USS West Conob (ID-4033) but was neither taken into the Navy nor commissioned.
West Conob was built in 1919 for the United States Shipping Board (USSB), part of the West series of ships—steel-hulled cargo ships built on the West Coast of the United States for the World War I war effort—and was the 14th ship built at Los Angeles Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company in San Pedro, California. She initially sailed for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and circumnavigated the globe twice by 1921. She began sailing to South America for Swayne & Hoyt Lines in 1925, and then, to Australia and New Zealand. When Swayne & Hoyt's operation was taken over by the Oceanic and Oriental Navigation Company a few years later, she sailed under the name Golden Eagle until 1934, when she was taken over by the Matson Navigation Company for service between Hawaii and the U.S. mainland and renamed Mauna Loa, after the large shield volcano on the island of Hawaii.