The Leviathan
Leviathan means "Monster of the Sea." She's all of that, being the largest ship now operating on the water.
She is 954 feet long, 100 feet beam, and, when leaving New York draws 41 feet 10 inches of water. Place her on Fifth Avenue and she would spread from 42nd Street across 45th Street. Stand her on end alongside the Woolworth Building and she would overtop that colossus of the sky by more than 50 feet. She weighs 69,000 tons; more that twice the displacement of the world's largest dreadnaught.
She stows 8,800 tons of coal; and consumes 11,110 on a trip, thereby requiring 3,310 tons abroad so she can have 1000 tons in reserve. Running at the speed she is capable of (around 23 knots), she would burn between 900 and 1000 tons daily. Her consumption at the rate we traveled (around 20), is 816 tons eastbound and 720 tons westbound, Welsh coal making the latter saving.
She has 46 boilers, 8 horizontal turbine engines (four forward and four aft---one set for backing and one for going ahead) and four propeller shafts. The two outer shafts are 250 feet long and the two inner ones 300 feet long; they are all 21 inches in diameter. The couplers (connecting drive shafts to propeller shafts) weighs 27 tons each. The shafts average 7 1/2 turns per minute per knot. The propeller blades are 7 feet long; fourteen feet from tip to tip. Her engineering department requires 12 officers and 950 men. Her commissary department requires 7 officers and 350 men.
Her larder carries enough supplies to compare with ten battleships and one supply ship. She took on over 2,000,000 net pounds of provisions before starting over after us---representing such trifles as 220,000 pounds of fresh beef, 45,000 pounds of ham, 95,000 pounds of navy beans, 150,000 pounds of Irish spuds, 100,000 pounds of apples, 45,000 pounds of evaporated milk, 175,000 pounds of sugar, 15,000 pounds of assorted cake, 18,000 dozens of eggs, 30,000 pounds of coffee, etc. She once made the trip over, left 80,000 pounds of provisions at Liverpool and returned without reprovisioning---and could have gone ten days more. She has 35,000 cubic feet of cold storage forward and 30,000 aft. All perishable stuff---save 35,000 pounds of spuds---is kept in cold storage. Her best provisioning record is three days and a half.
Her messing proposition represents the biggest feeding task ever undertaken in the history of the world. Up until the time we broke the record---with Battery B, 329th F.A. on the job---her best feeding record was around 10,000 men in 70 minutes. Our boys helped them to shoot through over 11,000 men in 80 minutes --- or approximately one man every half second. The general mess on our trip represented 13,926 men, crew and troops. There were 14,416 souls on board. Incidentally, our men won official commendations on the way they handled the mess, and the 329th as a whole was praised by all the navy officers as the cleanest, snappiest outfit that ever struck the big boat.
It is interesting to note that the general scheme of messing---with E Deck as Approach, D as Distribution and Exit, etc.; and with the twelve rows of "chow vats" feeding twenty-four lines at once, is an elaboration of a bygone, rough system of feeding landing forces of sailors at Guantanamo (Cuba) where it was the custom to land the various ship battalions for small arm practice. The original equipment was a very limited one, namely a mess table at the foot of each company street and four syrup barrels filled with water to wash the mess gear. From this crude idea was built the system on the Leviathan which holds the world's record for feeding the largest number of men in the shortest period of time. (We might add that if they keep up they'll have another world's record for good "eats," too.)
Some idea of the cost of meals on board may be gained from the figures on our trip: March 30th it cost $9,800 to feed all hands; March 29th $6,500, down to $5,300 on March 26th. The ovens turned out 4,000 two-pound loaves a day and 3,500 pies in a baking. Meals are prepared six hours ahead of time and reheated in the serving station steam vats. Around 2,1000 gallons of coffee are used each meal.
There were originally seven separate and distinct complete galleys (kitchens) on the ship, counting two Jewish kitchens designed for Kosher cooking, for immigrants. These were all ripped out and consolidated into one immense galley---where there are 47 steam kettles for cooking, 3 vegetable cookers holding three barrels of spuds each at a time, three electric potato peelers, power masher, etc. There were four different dining rooms originally, not including the one used as our officers mess which was operated as the Ritz-Carlton Restaurant. The place where our troops messed was the first class dining room.
The ship was the latest and last word in luxurious travel across the sea. There was a large ball room where we found the sick-bay, a fully equipped library, two fully equipped gymnasiums, a swimming pool with Turkish bath and electric ray machines, two smoking rooms, two lounging rooms, a beautifully furnished room for bridge players, and suite, known as the kaiser's suite, that cost something like 10,000 bucks to bunk in. A copy of the ship's manifest showed over $80,000 worth of wines in the ship---some haul for the customs officials! The stripping of the ship was estimated at close on to $1,0000,000 in furniture, linens, silverware, etc. But it took more money than that to fix her up as a transport. In all the troop spaces, for instance (especially on E Deck) were beautifully fitted out rooms with expensive furniture and finishings . The decks ran from A to M.
She had more than enough lifeboats and rafts to handle all the men on board. On her first trip as a U. S. transport Wall Street bet 100 to 1 against her safe return. She was attacked twice by submarines---once on Decoration Day going into Brest and two days later coming out. When the British transport JUSTICIAN was sunk in a running twenty-four-hour fight with six subs, the Germans thought they had the Leviathan and put on a premature celebration in Hunland. The Justician was another three-stacker and had similar camouflage.
The Leviathan's camouflage was the best ever camaufed, they claim. It was designed to give the enemy a wrong impression as to her course. Had she been torpedoed her "double skin"---she is the only ship with two hides---would have held her up for some time. Her wireless is the finest and strongest afloat---she can buzz some 2,200 miles. She has an iceberg alarm, regulated by water temperature, and a submarine detector operated electrically. Another electric alarm flashes if by any case the wrong engine maneuver is made.
She has six ice machines, and her refrigeration is done by the circulating brine, sealed tube system. Six evaporators on board are capable of distilling 250 tons (67,250 gallons) of water per day. Her string of dynamos look a block long and are capable of turning out enough juice in a day to last the city of Hoboken a week. She has 76,000 square feet of floor space on D Deck alone. She carries eight six-inch guns.
Altogether she's some craft, n'est pas?
And, oh yes, up until the armistice was signed she had carried 100,000 Yanks over. Twenty Leviathans could handle the whole A. E. F. tout suite. We were on her thirteenth westbound voyage, but no ill-luck crept aboard. We left Brest about sundown Wednesday, March 26th, and breezed in absolutely on schedule at 11 a.m. the next Tuesday. Thing of a floating city such a this is, sunning ON THE DOT over the restless Atlantic!
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To read the Battery account of the trip back click here
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