Qualla: USS General G. W. Goethals https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: USS General G. W. Goethals https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals USS General G. W. Goethals: Introduction https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit Unknown author, CC BY 4.0. She was born German. Built in Bremen in 1911 as the Grunewald for the Hamburg America Line, she was one of four sister ships meant to extend the company's worldwide cargo trade - the prewar version of the global supply chain, German-flagged and German-built. By 1914 she was running between Hamburg and the Caribbean. When the First World War began, she ducked into the neutral port of Colon, Panama, and waited. She waited three years. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, the US Navy seized her in Panama and renamed her after the engineer who had built the Panama Canal itself - General George Washington Goethals. She spent the rest of her career under American flags, under American names, doing American work, before being scrapped in Scotland in 1937.

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]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full USS General G. W. Goethals: From Bremen to Colon https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit US Navy, Public domain. The Hamburg America Line, known as HAPAG, was Imperial Germany's largest shipping company - a global commercial force whose ships called at every major port from New York to Shanghai. In 1911, HAPAG ordered four new sister ships to expand the Wald class: Grunewald, Schwarzwald, S...

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Image: US Navy | Public domain

]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-from-bremen-to-colon.mp3 0:06 2 full USS General G. W. Goethals: Seized for the War https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit US Navy, Public domain. On April 6, 1917, Congress declared war on Germany. The American government immediately seized every German merchant vessel in American ports - and Panama, though nominally independent, counted as American for these purposes. President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order on ...

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Image: US Navy | Public domain

]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-seized-for-the-war.mp3 0:06 3 full USS General G. W. Goethals: The Rescue of S-5 https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit US Navy, Public domain. On September 1, 1920, the American submarine S-5 sank accidentally during a practice crash dive about 55 nautical miles east of Cape Henlopen, Delaware. The crew of forty surviving inside the flooded submarine performed one of the more remarkable feats of escape engineering in na...

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]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-the-rescue-of-s-5.mp3 0:06 4 full USS General G. W. Goethals: Munorleans and the Stowaways https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit US Navy, Public domain. After the war, the ship passed through a peculiar sequence of owners. The Panama Canal Railway bought her from the US Shipping Board in 1920. In 1925 she was acquired by Marcus Garvey's Black Star Line - the Black-owned shipping company that Garvey founded as part of his pan-Afri...

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]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-munorleans-and-the-stowaways.mp3 0:06 5 full USS General G. W. Goethals: A Ship That Was Many Ships https://qualla.com/uss-general-g-w-goethals/ Photo credit US Navy, Public domain. The General G. W. Goethals was many ships in one - a German cargo liner, an American troop transport, a Black Star Line vessel, a Munson Line tramp, and finally Scottish scrap. Her career traced the arc of early twentieth-century maritime history: imperial German trade in 1911, w...

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]]> Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/q/g/7/uss-general-g-w-goethals-wp/dqg7-uss-general-g-w-goethals-a-ship-that-was-many-ships.mp3 0:06 6 full