USS Abarenda ( AC - 13 ) The first USS " Abarenda " ( AC - 13 / AG - 14 ) was a collier in the service of the United States Navy during World War I . She was originally a merchant ship built in 1892 at Newcastle , England by the Edwards Shipbuilding Company and was acquired by the Navy on 5 May 1898 . She was fitted out as Collier No . 13 and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 20 May 1898 with Lieutenant Commander Marcus B . Buford in command . Service history . Spanish - American War , 1898 . " Abarenda " departed New York on 28 May 1898 and stopped at Lamberts Point , Virginia , to load coal and ammunition before sailing for Cuba on the 30th . On 8 – 9 June , and then from 10 – 26 June , " Abarenda " replenished the bunkers and magazines of American warships at Santiago and Guantanamo Bay , and also provided gunfire support as the occasion demanded ( her port bow gun shelled Spanish positions at the mouth of the Guantanamo River on 12 June ) . That same day , Lt . Cdr . Buford presented the marine garrison ashore at Camp McCalla with a flag pole and , after being given an ensign by Captain Bowman McCalla , of the cruiser , a party of two officers and four men — under Lieutenant Stephen Jenkins — from " Abarenda " , erected the pole and raised the colors over the marine camp . " When the flag was hoisted by our men , " writes Buford , " the Squadron lying off the camp cheered it . . . the marines . . . were given new life and some took up the cheering . . . " " Abarenda " returned to Lamberts Point on 2 July and remained in the Hampton Roads area through the end of the war with Spain in August . South America , 1898 – 1899 . On 18 September , she sailed for South American waters , and reached Bahia , Brazil on 19 October . " En route " home , the ship visited Barbados , and St . Thomas , Danish West Indies , before ultimately reaching Hampton Roads on 8 December . Coaling duties with the North Atlantic Squadron occupied the ship through the early months of 1899 . Station ship , 1899 – 1902 . On 21 April 1899 , after completing the loading of a cargo of construction materials ( steel , corrugated iron , and glass ) which belonged to a San Francisco contractor given the contract to build a wharf and a coal shed at Pago Pago , Tutuila , American Samoa , and steel rods and angle irons earmarked for strengthening the foundations of the coal shed at Pago Pago , " Abarenda " shifted to Coal Pier No . 2 at Hampton Roads the following day , and coaled until the 24th . She departed Hampton Roads on 30 April , bound for the Pacific . En route , the ship stopped briefly at Montevideo , Uruguay , and Punta Arenas , Chile ; rounded Cape Horn in rough weather ( rolling as much as 30° during the passage ) ; and visited Valparaíso , Chile ; Bounty Bay , Pitcairn Island ; and Tahiti , before sighting Tutuila on 9 August . She anchored in Apia Harbor the following morning , and then shifted to Pago Pago on the morning of the 13th , to soon commence unloading the cargo brought from Norfolk . Assigned duty as station ship at Samoa , " Abarenda " spent the next two and a half years largely ferrying people and cargo between Apia and Pago Pago , often carrying as many as 50 — or more — Samoan natives each trip . Twice during this period , during the winter of 1899 – 1900 and the winter of 1900 – 1901 , the ship made a voyage from Samoan waters to New Zealand , where she was drydocked in the Calliope Dock at Auckland for hull work . Relieved of duty as station ship by the gunboat on 24 May 1902 , " Abarenda " sailed for the United States that same day , and , after touching at Lundy Point , Chile ; Montevideo ; St . Thomas and San Juan , Puerto Rico , " en route " , reached the Virginia Capes on 9 August . Shifting to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard at mid - day on the 10th , she underwent preparations for inactivation , and was decommissioned on 4 September . Atlantic Fleet , 1903 – 1909 . Following her recommissioning on 3 November 1903 , Lt . Cdr . J . L . Purcell in command , " Abarenda " sailed to Guantanamo Bay and Pensacola , Florida , to support the Atlantic Fleet . She was next ordered to carry coal and ammunition to the European Squadron and departed Norfolk on 23 April 1904 . She filled the bunkers of the battleship s , , , and from 3 – 20 June , and arrived at Piraeus , Greece on 30 June . After a two - day stop at Gibraltar in mid - July , the collier headed home on 3 August and arrived back at Norfolk where she immediately began loading coal and ammunition to supply the European Squadron . The collier again sailed for the Mediterranean on 14 October , arrived at Gibraltar on 2 November , and soon moved on to Genoa , Italy , to coal more ships . After a brief stop at Gibraltar , she got underway for the United States on 28 November . " Abarenda " reached Norfolk on 14 January 1905 . Late in the month , the ship made another coaling trip to Puerto Rico before again going out of commission at Norfolk on 21 February . At that time , the ship ' s Navy crew was removed ; that afternoon , the vessel was placed in service with a merchant crew , Master J . W . Holmes in command . For the next three and one - half years , she provided collier service for the Navy along the Atlantic coast until inactivated at Norfolk on 6 October 1909 . Asiatic Fleet , 1910 – 1917 . Placed back in service as a U . S . Naval Auxiliary on 19 May 1910 , under Master Whitney L . Eisler , " Abarenda " began preparing for service in the Far East . Departing Staten Island on 14 July 1910 , she proceeded via the Suez Canal to the Philippine Islands , arriving at Cavite on 20 September to begin serving the warships of the Asiatic Fleet . World War I , 1917 – 1918 . After the United States entered World War I , " Abarenda " was placed back in commission on 27 May 1917 , Lt . Cdr . Harry M . Bostwick , USNRF , in command when her officers and crew were sworn into the Naval Auxiliary Reserve — in response to an order issued by the Navy Department on 7 May directing that naval auxiliaries , which had previously been manned by civilian officers and crews , be brought fully into the Navy and manned by Navy personnel . Asiatic Fleet , 1919 – 1926 . With the exception of a short time in 1919 when she served as a station ship at Samoa , the collier — designated AC - 13 on 17 July 1920 — remained on duty with the Asiatic Fleet for the remainder of her career . It was in the twilight of her naval career that the ship took part in humanitarian relief in the wake of the devastating earthquake that occurred in Japan on 1 September 1923 . The first word received in the Asiatic Fleet was at 11 : 00 on 2 September , through a telegram to a Japanese newspaper in Dairen , Manchuria , where a detachment of the Fleet had been sent for liberty purposes . Admiral Edwin Anderson , Jr . , the Commander in Chief , Asiatic Fleet , immediately set the wheels in motion to offer relief to the stricken land . As part of the movement to gather supplies , " Abarenda " received orders on 5 September to load non - perishable stores and medical supplies at Hankow , China , and proceed immediately to Japanese waters . Ultimately reaching Yokohama on 18 September , the ship remained there for several days unloading , retained there temporarily to assist the American Embassy and the Red Cross in the distribution of relief supplies . A short time later , on 18 January 1924 , " Abarenda " s duties were changed when she became the receiving ship at Cavite and was assigned to the 16th Naval District ; still later that year , she was reclassified as a miscellaneous auxiliary , and was redesignated AG - 14 on 1 July 1924 . Reassigned to the Asiatic Fleet , proper , in November 1924 , the ship spent the remainder of her career engaged in carrying supplies , mail , and men from Cavite to the ships operating along the coasts of China and Japan . Decommissioning and sale . Decommissioned on 21 January 1926 , " Abarenda " was simultaneously struck from the Naval Vessel Register . She was sold at to S . R . Paterno on 28 February 1926 .