USS Bellingham ( ID - 3552 ) USS " Bellingham " ( ID - 3552 ) was a United States Navy cargo ship in commission from 1918 to 1919 . She later served the government of the Soviet Union as SS " Nevastroi " for many years . Construction , acquisition , and commissioning . " Bellingham " was laid down as the commercial steel - hulled , single - screw , steam cargo ship SS " War Herald " for the United States Shipping Board by the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Company at Seattle , Washington . She was renamed SS " Bellingham " and was completed in August 1918 . The Shipping Board transferred her to the U . S . Navy for use during World War I ; the Navy assigned her the naval registry identification number 3552 and commissioned her on 30 October 1918 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton , Washington , as USS " Bellingham " ( ID - 3552 ) with Lieutenant Commander Charles O . W . Lofstrom , USNRF , in command . Operational history . Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service to operate under a United States Army account , " Bellingham " departed for San Diego , California , on the morning of 4 November 1918 . After a brief stop there on 10 November 1918 , the day before the Armistice with Germany brought World War I to an end , she proceeded to Arica , Chile , where she arrived on 28 November 1918 . Shifting to Iquique , Chile , on 29 November 1918 , she loaded a cargo of nitrates before departing on the morning of 6 December 1918 . Reaching Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone on the Pacific Ocean side of the Isthmus of Panama on 15 December 1918 , she transited the Panama Canal that day and left Cristóbal on the Caribbean Sea side of the canal the same evening bound for Jacksonville , Florida . She reached Jacksonville on 22 December 1918 and discharged her cargo there . " Bellingham " got underway from Jacksonville on 10 January 1919 and steamed up the United States East Coast to Charleston , South Carolina , where she arrived on the evening of 11 January 1919 . Loading a cargo of 5 , 577 tons of steel and cotton , she left Charleston on 15 February 1919 bound for France . Upon arrival at Le Havre , France , on 6 March 1919 , however , she discovered that congestion of the port facilities there would have made it impossible to be assigned a berth for almost two weeks . Ordered to proceed instead to Cherbourg , France , she got underway on the afternoon of 8 March 1919 , and reached Cherbourg early on the morning of 9 March 1919 . There , she unloaded her cargo before returning to Le Havre on 16 March 1919 . Underway from Le Havre on 6 April 1919 , " Bellingham " arrived at Cardiff , Wales , on 8 April 1919 . She embarked 26 sailor s there for passage home to the United States and departed in ballast on 15 April 1919 . She reached the Quarantine Station off Staten Island in New York City late on the evening of 25 April 1919 . Cleared at the station , she anchored off Tompkinsville , Staten Island , on the morning of 26 April 1919 and transferred her passengers to the submarine chaser . Sent thence to discharge ballast , " Bellingham " moored alongside Pier 46 , North River , at 17 : 47 hours on 30 April and was placed in line for demobilization . She shifted briefly to a drydock in Brooklyn , New York , before being decommissioned . Decommissioning and later U . S . commercial career . " Bellingham " was decommissioned on 10 May 1919 and was stricken from the Navy List and transferred her back to the U . S . Shipping Board the same day . Once again SS " Bellingham " , she operated commercially under the control of the Shipping Board until she was laid up on 24 July 1923 at Fort Eustis , Virginia . Soviet career as SS " Nevastroi " . Sometime between 1929 and 1932 , " Bellingham " was among 29 surplus Shipping Board ships sold to the government of the Soviet Union . Renamed " Nevastroi " , she initially was based at Leningrad and later at Vladivostok as a ship of the Soviet governments Far East Shipping Company . In the late 1930s , " Nevastroi " became notorious as one of the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin s " slave ships " carrying Soviet political prisoners to the Kolyma Gulag in the far northeastern part of Siberia . During World War II she served on Lend - Lease duty in the Pacific Ocean , and underwent an overhaul in the United States . The Soviet Unions penchant for secrecy has obscured " Nevastroi " s ultimate fate ; She was damaged and probably sunk after hitting a naval mine on 16 August 1945 . Her name disappeared from " Lloyd ' s Register of Shipping " beginning with the 1959 - 1960 edition .