USS Oglala (CM-4) - World War I

World War I

The Navy converted the two passenger steamships at the Boston Navy Yard with decks to improve seaworthiness as mine planters. The ship was commissioned as Massachusetts (ID-1255), on 7 December 1917, and renamed Shawmut on 7 January 1918. She steamed to Britain in June 1918 and spent the rest of World War I helping lay the anti-submarine mine barrage across the North Sea by:

• planting 300 mines during the 3rd minelaying excursion on 14 July,
• planting 320 mines during the 4th minelaying excursion on 29 July,
• planting 150 mines during the 5th minelaying excursion on 8 August,
• planting 320 mines during the 7th minelaying excursion on 26 August,
• planting 290 mines on 30 August to complete the 7th minefield after USS Saranac was unable to lay its mines,
• planting 270 mines during the 8th minelaying excursion on 7 September,
• planting 320 mines during the 9th minelaying excursion on 20 September,
• planting 330 mines during the 10th minelaying excursion on 27 September,
• planting 330 mines during the 11th minelaying excursion on 4 October, and
• planting 340 mines during the final 13th minelaying excursion on 24 October.

Shawmut laid a total of 2,970 anchored mines while under command of Captain Wat Tyler Cluverius, Jr., USN. Captain Cluverius had been a midshipman aboard Maine (ACR-1) at Havana Harbor. In December 1918, Shawmut returned to the United States.