Sierra Ventana was a steam ship originally built for North German Lloyd in 1912, but requisitioned for use as a hospital ship during the First World War. She was then given to France as war reparations and sailed under two further names before being scrapped in 1936.
History Sierra Ventana was built at the yards of the German company Bremer Vulkan at Vegesack for North German Lloyd, one of the four-ship Sierra class for the South America run,Georg Bessell, Norddeutscher Lloyd, 1857–1957: Geschichte einer bremischen Reederei, Bremen: Schünemann, , , p. 107 and was launched on 12 October 1912.Edwin Drechsel, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen, 1857–1970: History, Fleet, Ship Mails, volume 1 Vancouver: Cordillera, 1994, , p. 398. She set out on her maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to La Plata on 18 January 1913.Arnold Kludas, Die Geschichte der deutschen Passagierschiffahrt volume 3 Sprunghaftes Wachstum, 1900 bis 1914, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums 20, Hamburg: Kabel, 1988, , p. 91 Sierra Ventana was chartered by the German Admiralty on 26 August 1914 and converted into a hospital ship.Bessell, p. 131. On 19 November 1918 she was returned to the North German Lloyd. On 5 February 1919, she was impounded at Cherbourg while transporting former prisoners, and on 26 January 1920, transferred as reparations to France; she was operated by the Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique of Bordeaux as Alba.Bessell, p. 210. In 1926 she was purchased by Chargeurs Réunis and renamed Amérique; she operated on the mail run to Africa. In 1936 she was scrapped at Blyth.
References
External links Sierra Ventana 1913 at Maritimes Archiv Photograph at U.S. Naval Historical Center