U.S. Shipping Board

Last modified: 2002-11-16 by rick wyatt
Keywords: shipping board | departmental | united states |
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by Joe McMillan, 14 January 2001
(1917-1927)

See also:

• Department of Commerce
• Departmental Flags
• United States of America

U.S. Shipping Board - The U.S. Shipping Board was created in September 1916 and organized in January 1917 to revitalize the U.S. merchant fleet. It built some 1,000 cargo ships, commandeered more than 2 million tons of shipping from private yards and owners, and operated the German ships seized by the U.S. government when it declared war on Germany in 1917. The house flag of the USSB was 6 x 9 feet, white with a three-star version of the shield from the U.S. COA superimposed on a blue anchor and flanked by the letters US and SB. According to the 1917 volume of U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, pages 2345 and 2346, the flag was designed by Charles Collens, a Boston architect. The USSB was redesignated the U.S. Shipping Bureau in the Department of Commerce in 1933, then disestablished and replaced by the Maritime Commission when Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. Its functions operating the government merchant fleet were lost to the Merchant Fleet Corporation in 1927, which was also subsumed into the Maritime Commission in 1936.
Joe McMillan, 14 January 2001