The second USS Housatonic was the Southern Pacific Steamship Company freighter El Rio. The ship was one of four company ships temporarily converted for planting the World War I North Sea Mine Barrage.
USS Housatonic (SP-1697)
The North Sea Mine Barrage, also known as the Northern Barrage, was a large minefield laid easterly from the Orkney Islands to Norway by the United States Navy during World War I. The objective was to inhibit the movement of U-boats from bases in Germany to the Atlantic shipping lanes bringing supplies to the British Isles. Rear Admiral Lewis Clinton-Baker, commanding the Royal Navy minelaying force at the time, described the barrage as the "biggest mine planting stunt in the world's history." Larger fields with greater numbers of mines were laid during World War II.
A Mk 6 mine atop its anchor. Two horn fuzes are visible, but the antenna fuze cannot be seen in this image.
Only the two smallest of the eight steamships converted to lay the barrage remained in commission for conventional minelaying operations. USS Shawmut, shown laying the North Sea mine barrage, sank 23 years later during the attack on Pearl Harbor after being renamed Oglala.
USS Eider (Minesweeper No. 17) (left) in port with submarine chasers alongside during the clearance of the North Sea Mine Barrage in 1919. The leftmost submarine chaser is either SC-254, SC-256 or SC-259 and the others are (left to right) SC-45, SC-356, SC-47, and SC-40.
