USS Navajo III (SP-298)

USS Navajo III (SP-298), later USS SP-298, was an armed motorboat that served in the United States Navy as a patrol vessel from 1917 to 1919.

Navajo III was built as a civilian motorboat of the same name in 1916 by the Gas Engine and Power Company and Charles L. Seabury and Company at Morris Heights in the Bronx, New York. The U.S. Navy acquired her for World War I service as a patrol vessel from her owner, Arthur Clapp, on 25 June 1917 and commissioned her the same day as USS Navajo III (SP-298) at the New York Navy Yard at Brooklyn, New York, with Chief Boatswain’s Mate Samuel J. Willis in command.

Assigned to the 3rd Naval District, headquartered at New York City, during World War I, Navajo III steamed to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor on 27 June 1917 and then to New Haven, Connecticut, to patrol the submarine net zone of Long Island Sound. On 5 August 1917, the patrol boat USS Abalone (SP-208) towed her up the Quinnipiac River, and thereafter Navajo III operated around Comfield, Connecticut, with the patrol boats USS Dodger II (SP-46), USS Siwash (SP-12), and USS Marie (SP-100). After moving to Smithtown Bay for target practice in November 1917, she proceeded to Marine Basin in New York City, remaining there until April 1918, when she was renamed USS SP-298.

In 1918, SP-298 was attached to Squadron 6, headquartered at Bridgeport, Connecticut, and patrolled the entrance to Bridgeport Harbor, shifting to patrol between Pinfield Reef and Stratford Shoal in June 1918. She continued patrol duty off Connecticut through the end of World War I.

SP-298 was decommissioned in 1919. She was stricken from the Navy List on 27 September 1919 and sold on 1 November 1919.