page_title: USS Wadena (SP-158)
section_title: U.S. Navy patrol craft
hierarchical_section_title: USS Wadena (SP-158) / U.S. Navy patrol craft
caption_attribution_description: Wadena (American Steam Yacht, 1891) In port, prior to World War I. This yacht was lengthened fifteen feet amidships in 1894. She was acquired by the Navy on 25 May 1917 and placed in commission as USS Wadena (SP-158) on 14 January 1918. Stricken on 24 April 1919, she was sold on 12 July 1920. The original print is in National Archives' Record Group 19-LCM. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
context_page_description: USS Wadena (SP-158) was a converted yacht patrol vessel of the United States Navy during World War I. She was built in 1891 in Cleveland, Ohio, as a steam yacht for Jeptha Homer Wade II of Cleveland and New York City. During her Navy career, Wadena made several trips escorting submarine chasers across the Atlantic Ocean, and, later, patrolling in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Wadena came to the aid of sinking tug Mariner and rescued all of her crew.
  During her career as Wade's personal yacht, she sailed to the Far East in 1895, calling at ports in Japan and China. After the yacht had rescued a Japanese boat in distress, Emperor Meiji attempted to purchase Wadena. Although Wade declined the offers, the ship, after moving on to visit ports in China, was detained for several hours under suspicion of being a Japanese vessel.
  Wadena was sold several times after her Navy career ended in 1919, eventually being abandoned and scrapped in 1931.
context_section_description: In the spring of 1917, the Navy inspected Wadena and acquired her from Wade, of Cleveland, who delivered the ship to the 3d Naval District on 25 May 1917. Designated SP-158, Wadena fitted out at the New York Navy Yard for "distant service" and was commissioned on 14 January 1918, Lt. Comdr. Walter M. Falconer, USNR, in command.
  In company with converted yacht Yacona and tug Mariner, Wadena got underway a half-hour before the end of the forenoon watch on 6 February 1918, for New London, Connecticut. The little convoy encountered ice floes the next day; Mariner towed Wadena on two occasions, the tug having to stop and repair her ice-damaged bow on the second occasion, necessitating Yacona's towing Wadena for a time. Anchoring off New London at the outset, the yacht shifted berths to the Central Vermont Railroad Pier, where she remained until steaming to Newport, Rhode Island, on 22 February. She then coaled from a barge at the coaling station at Melville, Rhode Island, Wadena's crew having to transfer the dusty and dusky fuel into their ship by hand-shovels.
  Wadena got underway from Newport, bound for Bermuda, on 24 February 1918 in company with Yacona and Mariner, and the tug Lykens. The four ships then rendezvoused with eleven 110-foot  submarine chasers soon thereafter. The French tug Mohican accompanied the group, bringing up the rear. As the convoy worked its way down the eastern seaboard, however, Mariner fell progressively astern. She briefly towed the submarine chaser SC-177 before the tug began to founder in a heavy southwesterly gale that sprang up on 26 February. Mariner hoisted the breakdown flag shortly before the end of the forenoon watch and cast loose SC-177. Soon thereafter, at the start of the afternoon watch, Mariner, her seams opened by the pounding sea, her pumps inoperative, and boiler fires put out by the rising water in her engineering spaces, signaled: "We are sinking fast". Wadena stood by to render assistance, her quartermaster noting that the sea was "very rough and running high." After embarking two increments of the doomed tug's crew from life rafts, Wadena sprayed oil on the water to calm the seas, and then brought on board the rest of Mariner's entire complement from three rafts, the last, its occupants having abandoned the tug, decks awash, reaching the yacht's side a half hour before the end of the first dog watch with Lt. (jg.) Martin Miller, Mariner's commanding officer, on board. Later, while the rest of the convoy continued on its passage and Mariner, abandoned, drifted off to sink by day's end, Wadena retrieved SC-177 and ultimately reached the British naval station at Hamilton, Bermuda, on 1 March.
  Wadena returned to the east coast of the United States soon thereafter, reaching Charleston, South Carolina, on 10 March 1918. She remained there until 25 March, when she escorted another convoy of submarine chasers to Bermuda, arriving there on 29 March. Assigned to the "special task force" to safeguard the transatlantic passage of submarine chasers slated to operate in European waters, Wadena sailed for the Azores on 15 April in company with seven submarine chasers, the U.S. Army tug Knickerbocker, and the tug Lykens. Making most of the passage under sail, Wadena reached Ponta Delgada, Azores, on 27 April. In company with Yacona and the fuel ship Arethusa, Wadena then sailed for Bermuda on 4 May and reached the British admiralty dockyard there 10 days later. While at Bermuda, she was drydocked for repairs and the application of anticorrosive (Italian Venecium Moravia red) and antifouling (Italian Venecium Moravia gray) paint to her hull. Underway again on 25 May, Wadena sailed for the Azores and returned to Bermuda in company with old consort Yacona and a trio of tugs, Undaunted, Goliah, and Arctic, on 20 June.
  After subsequently taking part in another transatlantic movement of submarine chasers from Bermuda to Europe, Wadena continued on via Ponta Delgada to Gibraltar in a truly allied assemblage, in company with the Italian Navy fuel ship Bronte and three French submarine chasers. Reac
caption: Wadena is seen as she appeared shortly before her U.S. Navy service in World War I.
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