President Coolidge SS

SS President Coolidge was an American luxury ocean liner that was completed in 1931. She was operated by Dollar Steamship Lines until 1938, and then by American President Lines until 1941. She served as a troopship from December 1941 until October 1942, when she was sunk by mines in Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, part of current-day Vanuatu. President Coolidge had a sister ship, SS President Hoover, completed in 1930 and lost when she ran aground in a typhoon in 1937.
As relations between Japan and Britain deteriorated in 1940, President Coolidge helped to evacuate US citizens from Hong Kong. As Japanese aggression expanded, President Coolidge took part in evacuations from other parts of east Asia.
In 1941 the threat of war increased and the US War Department began to use President Coolidge for occasional voyages to Honolulu and Manila. In June 1941 President Coolidge became a troopship, reinforcing garrisons in the Pacific. On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and on December 19 President Coolidge evacuated 125 critically injured naval patients from Hawaii, cared for by three hastily assigned Navy nurses and two Navy doctors from the Philippines that were already among passengers being evacuated from the war zone that had now reached Hawaii.[10] The ship reached San Francisco on 25 December.
On 12 January 1942 the first large convoy, including the large former ocean liners President Coolidge and SS Mariposa, to Australia after Pearl Harbor departed the United States carrying troops, supplies, ammunition and weapons, including P-40 fighters intended for the Philippines and Java with fifty of the planes carried by President Coolidge and Mariposa.[11][12] Arriving Melbourne on 1 February in President Coolidge, along with supplies and munitions not intended for transshipment beyond Australia, were the officers, known as the "Remember Pearl Harbor" (RPH) Group, selected to form the staff of the US Army Forces in Australia (USAFIA) as the command structure for what was to be the Southwest Pacific Area was evolving.[11]
President Coolidge performed these military duties in her pre-war civilian condition. Only in 1942 was she properly converted into a troopship. Many of her civilian fittings were either removed for safe keeping or boarded over for their protection. Her accommodation was reorganised to provide capacity for more than 5,000 troops. Guns were mounted on her, she was painted haze gray and the War Shipping Administration assigned her to the US Navy.[13]
After her conversion, President Coolidge resumed service in the South West Pacific theatre. In the spring of 1942, escorted by the cruiser USS St. Louis,[14] she took Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippines from Melbourne[15] to San Francisco.
In her first few months of service President Coolidge's ports of call included Melbourne, Wellington, Auckland, Bora Bora, and Suva. On October 6, she left homeport of San Francisco for New Caledonia and the New Hebrides. Embarked were the 172nd Infantry Combat Team, 43rd Division,[16] and a harbor defense unit intended to protect the airfield at Espiritu Santo that was providing bomber support for forces at Guadalcanal.[17]
Loss[edit]

 
SS President Coolidge being abandoned after beaching.

A large military base and harbor had been established on Espiritu Santo and the harbor was heavily protected by mines. Information about safe entry into the harbor had been accidentally omitted from President Coolidge's sailing orders, and on her approach to Santo on 26 October, President Coolidge, fearing Japanese submarines and unaware of the mine fields, tried to enter the harbor through the largest and most obvious channel. A mine struck the ship in the engine room, and moments later a second mine hit her near her stern.
Captain Henry Nelson, knowing that he was going to lose the ship, ran her aground and ordered troops to abandon ship. Not believing the ship would sink, troops were told to leave all of their belongings behind under the impression that they would conduct salvage operations over the next few days.
Over the next 90 minutes, 5,340 men from the ship got safely ashore. There was no panic as they disembarked; many even walked ashore. However, the captain's attempts to beach the ship were thwarted by a coral reef. President Coolidge listed heavily on her side, sank, and slid down the slope into the channel.
There were only two casualties in the sinking.[18] The first was Fireman Robert Reid, who was working in the engine room and was killed by the first mine blast. The second, Captain Elwood Joseph Euart, 103rd Field Artillery Regiment, had safely got off President Coolidge when he heard that there were still men in the infirmary who could not get out. He returned through one of the sea doors, successfully rescued the men but was then unable to escape himself and went down with the ship. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his heroic actions.[19] A memorial to Captain Euart is on the shore near the access points[citation needed] for the Coolidge. In 2013, Captain Euart's body was reportedly located by a local dive guide and a message was sent to the Australian High Commission, who then passed this onto US authorities in Hawaii. An American recovery team arrived in February 2014, and working with local operators, they found Capt Euart's remains after 73 years with his dog tags and personal items inside deep silt in the bottom of the wreck. Subsequent DNA testing matched with Capt Euart's relatives and his nephew who were advised that US military would perform a full military funeral service and he will be buried with his parents.[20]
Pfc.Joseph A. LaValley was the first of more than 50 Transportation Company men and women at a retreat parade where Lt. Robert D. McCaughley presented him with a citation honoring him for courage and discipline displayed during the sinking of the U.S. Army Transport President Coolidge in the South Pacific.[citation needed]
The loss of critical equipment being carried in President Coolidge, forcing redistribution of scarce local stores, combined with loss of the ship when shipping was critically short, delaying deployment of the 25th Division from Hawaii to the theater, complicated logistics during the crisis at Guadalcanal.[17] President Coolidge also held 591 pounds/268 kilos of quinine, at that time the entire stock of quinine held by the US[