West Cressy, a 6091.51 gross ton cargo ship, was built at Seattle, Washington, as part of the huge World War I emergency merchant fleet program. She was taken over by the Navy upon completion in mid-December 1918 and placed in commission as West Cressy (ID # 3813). Leaving the West Coast in January 1919, the ship carried a cargo of flour to Constantinople, Turkey, via the Panama Canal, Norfolk, Virginia, and Gibraltar. In March and April she returned home with a load of medicinal opium and tobacco. USS West Cressy was decommissioned in May 1919 and returned to the U.S. Shipping Board, in whose custody she remained until abandoned in 1933.