USS St. Francis (ID-1557)

USS St. Francis (ID-1557) was a freighter built for the Isthmian Steamship Company, of London, England, a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation, prior to World War I. She was acquired by the US Navy for use during the war.

Construction
St. Francis, a steel-hulled, screw freighter built in 1914, by the North Ireland Ship Building Co., County Londonderry, Ireland, was acquired by the US Navy at Baltimore on 19 June 1918, under United States Shipping Board (USSB) charter from the United States Steel Corporation; and commissioned there on 25 June.

Service history
Assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, the ship was loaded with US Army supplies and sailed for New York, where she joined a convoy and sailed for France, on 4 July. The ships reached Brest, France, on 19 July; and, the next day, St. Francis proceeded to West Hampton, England, where she discharged her cargo. On 15 August, she sailed in convoy for the United States and reached Baltimore, on 27 August. Reloaded with Army supplies, she again got underway on 18 September, and steamed via New York, to France, and arrived at La Pallice, on 13 October. The next day, she proceeded to St. Nazaire, where she unloaded.

Back in Baltimore on 14 November, three days after the armistice was signed, the ship was transferred from an Army to a USSB Account and sailed from New York, on 26 January 1919, for Cristobal, Panama. After transiting the canal, she proceeded down the Pacific coast of South America and reached Valparaiso, Chile, on 17 February. After returning through the canal, the ship loaded a commercial cargo of sugar at Cienfuegos, Cuba, and arrived at New York, on 8 April. She was decommissioned there on 28 April 1919, and the same day was transferred to the USSB for simultaneous return to her owner.

Fate
In 1933, she was sold to the International Freighting Company, Wilmington, Delaware, and renamed Lammot du Pont.

On 23 April 1942, she was torpedoed at 20:53, by a single torpedo from GS U-125 (1940) at 27.16667°N, -57.16667°W. She had been traveling alone on a nonevasive (zigzag)course. The torpedo struck the ship on her port side between her #4 cargo hatch and her engine room. Within 5 minutes Lammot du Pont rolled on her side. The crew of nine officers, 36 crewmen, and nine armed guards abandon ship in one lifeboat and three rafts. Six of the crew went down with the ship while two others left on a broken raft, and while attempts by the other survivors tried to reach these men, heavy seas prevented them from being reached and they drifted away.

After two days at sea, eight crew members and seven of the armed guards, were rescued by the Swedish motor merchant Astri. On 8 May, they were transferred to the light cruiser USS Omaha (CL-4). She took the survivors to Recife, Brazil, 11 May. The remaining 31 crew members and two armed guards drifted in the lifeboat for 23 days until being rescued by the destroyer USS Tarbell (DD-142), after having been spotted by aircraft 40 mi from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Seven of the crew and one of the armed guards, though, had died of fever, while three more crew members died later at the hospital in San Juan.