USS Mizpah (PY-29)

USS Mizpah (PY-29) was a United States Navy patrol yacht. Constructed in 1926, the vessel was constructed as the pleasure yacht Savarona. In 1929 it was renamed Allegro and then Mizpah for use on the Great Lakes. The vessel was acquired by the United States Navy in 1942 and converted to a warship and commissioned the same year. Mizpah served as a convoy escort along the United States East Coast before becoming a school ship in 1944. Following the end of the war, the vessel returned to private operation in 1946 until 1967 when Mizpah was laid up with a broken crankshaft at Tampa, Florida. An attempt to save the ship proved futile and Mizpah was scuttled off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef in 1968. The wreck is now a popular dive site.

USS Mizpah on its trial run
History
United States
Name: Mizpah
Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company
Laid down: 1926
Commissioned: 26 October 1942
Decommissioned: 16 January 1946
Fate: Scuttled, 9 April 1968
Notes: Call sign: Nan/Baker/Roger/Tare
General characteristics
Class and type: Patrol yacht
Displacement: 607 tons
Length: 181 ft (55 m)
Beam: 27 ft (8.2 m)
Draft: 10 ft 7 in (3.23 m)
Propulsion: two 850 hp (630 kW) Winton diesel engines, two shafts
Speed: 13.9 knots (25.7 km/h; 16.0 mph)
Armament:

Service history

The 185-foot (56 m) ship was birthed in 1926 from the parts of an abandoned new destroyer, as the pleasure yacht Savarona by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia.[1] The yacht, originally constructed for the United States Navy but due to naval treaties was prevented from being completed. The still unbuilt vessel was sold to Mrs. Cadwalder of Palm Beach, Florida. After completion the vessel was given the name Sequoia before being sold to James Everson who renamed it Allegro.[2] In 1929 it was sold to Eugene F. McDonald of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founder and president of the Zenith Radio Corporation,[1][3] and used it both as a Chicago residence and a floating laboratory on which to test the electronics company's new products. One of the largest yachts on the Great Lakes in its heyday, the ship was renamed Mizpah in 1929.[2]

United States Navy service
USS Mizpah in drydock, undergoing conversion

Mizpah was acquired by the United States Navy on 16 March 1942 and converted to a warship at Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding Company, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, with Lieutenant Stephen M. Etnier in command. It was commissioned USS Mizpah (PY-29) on 26 October 1942. Mizpah departed Sturgeon Bay on 16 November 1942 for service as a convoy escort along the eastern coast of the United States. Mizpah escorted convoys between New York City and Key West, Florida until July 1944. From August 1944 until April 1945, Mizpah served as a navigation school ship from the Amphibious Training Base at Little Creek, Virginia, training officers to sail amphibious vessels in the Chesapeake Bay region.[1]

Mizpah underwent conversion to a flagship at Boston, Massachusetts and was employed as such by Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet. Mizpah became the flagship of Rear Admiral O. M. Hustvedt at Portland, Maine, on 28 May 1945. Hustvedt was succeeded by Rear Admiral Frank E. Beatty, Jr., on 4 September 1945. Mizpah arrived in Charleston, South Carolina on 10 December 1945. It was decommissioned on 16 January 1946 and transferred to the United States War Shipping Administration (WSA) on 25 September 1946 for disposal.[1]

Final years

The WSA then sold her to a private Honduran corporation for transporting bananas out of South America. While sailing to Tampa, Florida, the vessel was caught in a storm and suffered a broken crankshaft and was laid up for repair. At that time, Eugene Kinney,[3] McDonald's nephew and Zenith Corporation vice president who had grown up on Mizpah and served as a naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II, learned of her plight and purchased her. Finding Mizpah irreparably damaged, however, Kinney scuttled her off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida, on 9 April 1968,[4] along with another ship, USS PC-1174, to serve as an artificial reef to prevent beach erosion.

Sitting in 90–110 feet (27–34 m) of water[5] with her hatches purposely due to issues during the scuttling, Mizpah is now one of the chief attractions of an offshore scuba diver's area known as "The Mizpah Corridor".[2]

Citations
  1. DANFS.
  2. Stearns, Walt (17 July 2015). "Diving the Mizpah". X-Ray Mag. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  3. "Eugene McDonald Kinney". The Chicago Tribune. 17 October 2000. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
  4. Smyth, Pete (August 1968). "When the Great Ship Went Down". Motor Boating. p. 65.
  5. Boyd, Ellsworth (August 1996). "Rubber Ducks Away". Sport Diver. Vol. 4 no. 4. pp. 22, 24. ISSN 1077-985X.

Sources
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