USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was a cargo ship during World War I, one of the steel-hulled West ships built for the U.S. Shipping Board on the West Coast. Launched in April 1918, the ship joined a convoy of cargo ships headed to France in August. After the convoy was attacked by two German submarines and West Bridge was torpedoed, a salvage crew from the American destroyer Smith and four tugs dispatched from France successfully brought the ship into port. After seven months of repairs, West Bridge resumed Navy service until December 1919. The ship was laid up for nearly seven years from 1922 to 1929, when she was sold to an intercoastal cargo service under the name SS Barbara Cates. By 1938, the ship had been renamed Pan Gulf for service with a subsidiary of the Waterman Steamship Company. During World War II, Pan Gulf made nine round trips across the North Atlantic without incident in convoys. In May 1945, the ship was transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. Renamed SS Lermontov, the ship continued in civilian service for the Soviets until 1966.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_West_Bridge_(ID-2888)

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1843:

Captain Lord George Paulet of the Royal Navy began a five-month occupation of land in the Hawaiian Islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulet_affair_(1843)

1866:

Miners in Calaveras County, California, discovered a human skull that a prominent geologist claimed was proof (later disproven) that humans had existed during the Pliocene age. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaveras_Skull

1948:

Fearful of civil war and Soviet intervention in recent unrest, Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš ceded control over the government to the Communist Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Czechoslovak_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

1951:

After being postponed since 1943 due to World War II, the first Pan American Games opened in Buenos Aires, Argentina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_Games

1992:

Nagorno-Karabakh War: Armenian armed forces killed at least 161 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly in the Nagorno- Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khojaly_Massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

Nadsat: The Russian-influenced argot used by the teenage protagonists in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange (1962). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nadsat

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I had no ambition when I was a kid other than to play guitar and get in a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really like to be the guy in the white suit at the front. Like in the Beatles, I was the one who kept quiet at the back and let the other egos be at the front.   --George Harrison https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Harrison