Discovery of an Archival Photograph Results in an Unlikely Connection between a WWI Collier and a Destroyer
By Marvin Barrash
Special to the Doughboy Foundation website
The Research
For more than a quarter century I’ve researched the U.S.S. Cyclops. When I began the quest to learn about the ship and her personnel, Internet web browsing was still in its infancy. It was full of promise, but it was not yet a reliable document source. I relied on actual visits to libraries and repositories and viewed original source materials such as paper documents and ships’ log books. Sometimes scratchy microfilms were the only alternative to paper originals. With the passage of time, the Internet grew in volume and in speed. Bigger and faster were not necessarily better. Online repositories began to appear, but few were dependable. The standards and formats for digital data, networks and systems constantly changed and evolved.
Once I knew that I would commit to write a history of the U.S.S. Cyclops, I needed to have frequent and easy access to the ship’s log books. It was not practical for me to make frequent trips to Washington, D.C. to study and make notes from those volumes at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the repository for those and most U.S. Navy log books.
(The complete article with photographs is available at:
The Doughboy Foundation.)​​​
U.S.S. CYCLOPS, Volume II
by Marvin W. Barrash
The U.S.S. Cyclops, a collier launched on 7 May 1910, carried a hardworking crew. Her mission was to keep the U.S. Navy fleet fueled and supplied during World War I. Occasional mention of the Cyclops’ good work appeared in the press, but when she disappeared in 1918, there was extensive front page coverage.
U.S.S. CYCLOPS, Volume I, documented the day-to-day operations on the ship, her architecture and most everything pertaining to the Cyclops’ history.
Despite all of the research, which began in 1997, some questions remained unanswered concerning the loss of the ship, the origins of Captain Worley and details pertaining to the final crew. U.S.S. Cyclops, Volume II answers many of those questions. It also focuses on the loss of the ship and the 309 men, on board, in 1918. Positional data gleaned from the log books of the Collier Abarenda, may eventually lead to the location where the U.S.S. Cyclops came to rest and ultimately an analysis of the cause of her loss. That data is included in this volume. A wealth of photographs and an index to surnames, places and subjects add to the value of this work.
