Scuttled WWI Ships

During World War I The Foundation Company was formed to provide ships to transport food to Britain and primarily to France because German was doing everything in their power to destroy the shipping industry and vessels of those two countries. The Germans were hoping to isolate and starve the populations into surrender.

Franklin Remington, a member of the Remington firearms company and the founder of the Remington typewriter business decided to assist Great Britain and France. His war effort was focused on building wooden warships in Savannah, GA, Brunswick, GA, Kerny/Newark, NJ, New Orleans, LA, Portland, OR and Tacoma, WA. that could transport the needed food. I believe these vessels would be better described as wooden cargo transport steamships rather than warships. However the two words, “warship” and cargo steamship” are used interchangeably in the documents. Unfortunately when the war ended in November 1918 many of those warships remained incomplete.
These are the last remains of those “warships”. They are located in Henderson Bay, near Gig Harbor, WA. In June, 1926, 36 ships were either pulled into the bay or left at the mouth of Minter Creek and set on fire. The fires burned for months. The results are what you see. There is another ship, a few miles away that is believed to be part of this exercise.