USS Leonidas ( AD - 7 ) USS " Leonidas " ( AD - 7 ) was a destroyer tender , the lone ship in her class , named for " Leonidas I " ( a king of Sparta ) , and the second United States naval vessel to bear the name . Originally built as Elizabeth Holland by S . P . Austin & Son , Ltd . , Sunderland , England in 1897 - 98 ; acquired by the Navy from Samuel P . Holland , London , 16 April 1898 ; and commissioned at New York on 21 May 1898 with Commander William Irwin Moore in command . Service history . Collier , 1898 – 1912 . Converted into a collier for duty with the newly established Navy Fleet Train , " Leonidas " departed New York on 30 May 1898 on a coaling voyage to Key West , Florida , and following her return to Norfolk in mid - June , sailed again on the 23rd for Cuba and Jamaica , supplying occupation troops and naval units . Putting into League Island Navy Yard , Philadelphia on 15 December , she decommissioned on the 27th and remained there in reserve for nearly two years . Reactivated on 8 November 1900 she served with the Collier Service , carrying coal to naval ships and stations along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies through 1908 . Decommissioning at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery , Maine , from 15 February to 11 June 1909 , the ship resumed her service as an Atlantic Fleet Auxiliary until placed out of service on 3 May 1912 at Portsmouth to fit out for duty as a survey ship . Survey ship , 1914 – 1917 . Recommissioned on 1 April 1914 , " Leonidas " sailed from Portsmouth via Boston to survey the coast of Panama . From that date until 24 April 1917 the converted survey ship made four surveying trips to the Caribbean , charting the coasts of Panama , Honduras , and Nicaragua and making general observations on climate and terrain . With the outbreak of World War I , she took up patrol duty in the Caribbean , searching for possible enemy submarine bases in Central America . As part of the Caribbean Detachment , Patrol Force , Atlantic Fleet , " Leonidas " remained in the West Indies until sailing for home 4 September , arriving Portsmouth 30 October . Tender , 1918 – 1922 . There the survey ship was converted , once again , this time into a tender capable of supplying two squadrons of submarine chaser s . " Leonidas " sailed for the Mediterranean on 8 March 1918 via New York , Bermuda , the Azores and Gibraltar , arriving Corfu , Italy on 8 June and remaining there tending her submarine chasers guarding the area from submarine attack . After the Armistice on 20 November , the tender sailed for home via ports in Italy , the Riviera , and Spain , and escorted a convoy of submarine chasers from the Azores to Bermuda . She twice more escorted homeward bound small craft before arriving New York on 8 September . Following short voyages to New London and Newport in support of her submarine chasers , the ship sailed for Key West on 11 October and operated off the southern U . S . coast as tender for the destroyer s of Reserve Destroyer Squadron 1 , Atlantic Fleet , out of Charleston , South Carolina until sailing for New York and arriving 19 May 1921 . " Leonidas " sailed to Newport for duty 1 June to 17 October and , after returning to New York , sailed for Norfolk on the 28th , arriving two days later . She decommissioned there on 28 November , and was sold on 5 June 1922 to Ammunitions Products Corporation of Washington , D . C . as the SS " Elizabeth Holland " .