[Gutenberg 59699] • History of the U.S.S. Leviathan, cruiser and transport forces, United States Atlantic fleet / Compiled from the ship's log and data gathered by the history committee on board the ship

Excerpt from History of the U. S. S. Leviathan: Cruiser and Transport Forces, United States Atlantic Fleet

She was seized by the U. S. Customs officials in the early morning of April 6, 1917, turned over to the Shipping Board to be manned and operated, but after nearly three months' effort on their part without the ship leaving the dock, she was finally, on July 25, 1917, turned over to the Navy Department and regularly commissioned as a Naval vessel and assigned to transport duty under the command of Vice Admiral Albert Gleaves, U. S. Navy, Commander of the Cruiser and Transport Force, United States Atlantic Fleet.

The Leviathan's record for carrying human beings across the ocean has never been approached by any other vessel in the history of the world. Back and forth she went across the Atlantic, almost with the regularity of clockwork, passing unscathed a score of times through the war zone, though the German submarines made several attempts in force to get her. Her performance constitutes one of the greatest marine achievements of the world and it would seem that fate had designed her to fulfil a mission of retributive justice.

The Germans said it could not be done, but true to their nature, they had not figured on the ingenuity, initiative and pluck of the American sailor. When the Armistice was signed this three-funnelled colossus of the waves had made ten trips across the Atlantic as a naval transport and had landed a grand total of American soldiers in France and England. In other words, this single ship had transported to Europe one twentieth of the total number of the American Expeditionary Force.

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