View source for Engineering:SS Kaiser Wilhelm II

{{Short description|German passenger ship}}
{{other ships|List of ships named Kaiser Wilhelm II}}
{|{{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image
|Ship image=[[File:NIE 1905 Steam Navigation - Kaiser Wilhelm II.jpg|300px|SS Kaiser Wilhelm II]]
|Ship caption= SS ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'', (c. 1905).
}}
{{Infobox ship career
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|Ship country=[[Place:German Empire|German Empire]]
|Ship flag={{shipboxflag|German Empire|civil}}
|Ship name= ''Kaiser Wilhelm II''
|Ship namesake= Wilhelm II, German Emperor
|Ship owner= 
|Ship operator=Norddeutscher Lloyd
|Ship registry={{flagicon|German Empire|civil}} Germany
|Ship route=Germany–New York City
|Ship ordered=
|Ship awarded=
|Ship builder=AG Vulcan, Stettin, Germany
|Ship original cost=
|Ship yard number=
|Ship way number=
|Ship laid down=
|Ship launched=12 August 1902
|Ship sponsor=
|Ship christened=Miss Wiegand
|Ship completed= 1903
|Ship acquired=
|Ship maiden voyage= 14 April 1903
|Ship in service=1903–1917
|Ship out of service=6 April 1917
|Ship struck=
|Ship renamed=
|Ship reclassified=
|Ship homeport=
|Ship motto=
|Ship nickname=
|Ship honors=
|Ship fate=Seized by the United States, 6 April 1917
|Ship notes=
}}
{{Infobox ship career
|Hide header=title
|Ship country=United States
|Ship flag= {{USN flag|1940}}
|Ship name=USS ''Kaiser Wilhelm II''  
|Ship namesake=
|Ship ordered=
|Ship builder=
|Ship laid down=
|Ship launched=
|Ship acquired=
|Ship commissioned=21 August 1917
|Ship decommissioned=August 1919
|Ship in service=1917–1919
|Ship out of service=27 August 1919
|Ship struck=27 August 1919 
|Ship renamed=* USS ''Agamemnon'', 1 September 1917
* USAT ''Monticello'', 1927
|Ship reclassified=
|Ship homeport=
|Ship motto=
|Ship nickname=
|Ship identification=ID-3004
|Ship honors=
|Ship fate=Sold for scrapping, 1940
|Ship notes=
}}
{{Infobox ship characteristics
|Hide header=
|Header caption=
|Ship class= {{sclass2|Kaiser|ocean liner}}
|Ship displacement={{convert|25530|LT|t|0|lk=in|abbr=on}}
|Ship length= {{convert|706|ft|3|in|m|abbr=on}}
|Ship beam= {{convert|72|ft|3|in|m|abbr=on}}
|Ship draft= {{convert|29|ft|10|in|m|abbr=on}}
|Ship depth=
|Ship hold depth= {{convert|40|ft|2|in|m|abbr=on}}
|Ship propulsion= Steam quadruple expansion engines, 2 propellers
|Ship speed= {{convert|23.5|kn|lk=in}} 
|Ship range= 
|Ship boats=
|Ship capacity=1,888 passengers
|Ship troops=
|Ship complement=962 officers and enlisted
|Ship armament=*4 × {{convert|6|in|mm|abbr=on}} guns
*2 × [[Engineering:QF 1-pounder pom-pom|1-pounder gun]]s
*2 × Colt Lewis .30-cal. machine guns
*10 × depth charges
|Ship armor=
|Ship notes=
}}
|}
'''''Kaiser Wilhelm II''''' was a 19,361 gross register ton [[Engineering:Passenger ship|passenger ship]] built at Stettin, Germany. The ship was completed in the spring of 1903. At the time of her launch she was larger by 1,900 tons than any other German ship and was surpassed in the weight of her hull and machinery only by the British liners ''RMS Cedric'' and ''RMS Celtic''.<ref name="Engineering">{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4NJLAAAAYAAJ|title=North German Lloyd Steamship Kaiser Wilhem II| periodical=Index to Marine Engineering| publisher=Marine Publishing Company| volume=8| date=January 1903| page=27}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title=Transactions of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers| publisher=Society of Naval Architects & Marine Engineers| volume=11| year=1904| page=318}}</ref> The ship was seized by the U.S. Government during [[Social:World War I|World War I]], and subsequently served as a transport ship under the name '''USS ''Agamemnon'''''. A famous photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz called ''The Steerage'', as well as [[Engineering:Steerage|descriptions]] of the conditions of travel in the lowest class, have conflicted with her otherwise glitzy reputation as a high class, high speed transatlantic liner. The ship is well-known as the vessel which took Gustav Mahler on his last trip to the United States in October 1910, as well as Jean Sibelius to the States to conduct the premiere of his tone poem The Oceanides in May 1914.

==Design==
The ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' was built with a full [[Engineering:Double hull|double-bottom]] along the hull. She was divided into 26 watertight compartments via 16 transverse bulkheads and one longitudinal bulkhead separating the engine rooms. She was designed so that any two compartments could flood and the ship stay afloat. 52 watertight doors were distributed between the bulkheads, 24 of which could be closed from the bridge via the Dörr mechanism.<ref name="Engineering"/>

===Interiors===
''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' could accommodate 775 First-Class passengers in 290 cabins, and 343 Second-Class passengers in 102 cabins. There was room for another 770 in Third-Class.<ref name="Engineering"/> The two First-Class "Imperial" suites were the finest accommodation aboard, each featuring a dining room, drawing room, bedroom, and bathroom. There were 8 suites with sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom and another 8 cabins with an adjoining bathroom.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YadHAQAAMAAJ&dq=kaiser+wilhelm+ii+ship&pg=PA679| title=Another Great Ocean Liner| periodical=Current Literature: A Magazine of Record and Review| publisher=Current Literature Publishing Company| volume=34| year=1903| page=679}}</ref> 

The design of the ship's interiors was entrusted to Johann Poppe, who had designed the interiors of the ''SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse'' and the '' SS Kronprinz Wilhelm''.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://thegreatoceanliners.com/articles/kaiser-wilhelm-ii-ii/| title=Kaiser Wilhelm II (II)| author=Henrik Ljungström| publisher=thegreatoceanliners.com| access-date=2022-05-31}}</ref> The First-Class dining saloon was three decks high and designed in Poppe's signature German [[History:Baroque|Baroque]] revival style. It was 108 feet long and 69 feet wide, the full beam of the ship. It could accommodate 554 diners.<ref>{{cite book| title=Designing Liners: A History of Interior Design Afloat | author=Anne Wealleans| publisher=Taylor & Francis| year=2006| page=38}}</ref> Other First-Class amenities included a children's saloon, a typewriting room, smoking room, drawing room, reading and writing room, and two cafés on the bridge deck.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=kawi2 |title=S/S Kaiser Wilhelm II (2), Norddeutscher Lloyd| publisher=www.norwayheritage.com| access-date=2022-05-31}}</ref>

==German career==
[[File:First Class Drawing Room (Gesellschaftszimmer) of the Kaiser Wilhelm II.jpg|left|thumb|The First Class Drawing Room]]
[[File:Alfred Stieglitz (American - The Steerage - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|left|''The Steerage'' by Alfred Stieglitz. This version was published in ''291'' in 1915.]]
Designed for high speed [[Earth:Transatlantic crossing|trans-Atlantic]] service, ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' was launched at Stettin on 12 August 1902, in the presence of the German Emperor, for whom it was named by Miss Wiegand, daughter of Heinrich Wiegand, director of its owner Norddeutscher Lloyd.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Latest intelligence – the German Emperor |date=13 August 1902 |page=3 |issue=36845}}</ref> Her design allowed for guns to be installed so that the ship could act as an auxiliary to the German Navy.<ref name="Engineering"/>

She won the [[Earth:Blue Riband|Blue Riband]] for the fastest eastbound crossing in 1904. In the years before the outbreak of World War I, she made regular trips between Germany and New York City, carrying passengers both prestigious (in first class) and profitable (in the much more austere [[Engineering:Steerage|steerage]]).

In 1906 (after 7 March), when caught in fog outside Cherbourg, the ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' was reported to have used a new acoustic system to reveal her presence (''Le Matin'', ''Nouvelles en trois lignes'': '''Pris dans la brume devant Cherbourg, le K.-Wilhelm-II révéla sa présence par le système nouveau de la cloche sous-marine''<nowiki/>').<ref>{{Cite web |title=Nouvelles en trois lignes - Wikisource |url=https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Nouvelles_en_trois_lignes |access-date=2023-04-15 |website=fr.wikisource.org |language=fr}}</ref>

On 17 June 1914 ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' collided with the 3,000-ton British steamer ''Incemore'' in thick fog off the Needles. ''Kaiser''{{'s}} hull was holed below the waterline, but the ship's watertight bulkheads held and the ship returned to Southampton under her own power.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Fleets of the Mail Lines: Disasters to Mail Steamers|magazine=The Marine Engineer and Naval Architect|date=July 1914|pages=458–459|volume=36}}</ref> ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' was west-bound when war with Britain began on 4 August 1914 and, after evading patrolling British cruisers, arrived at New York two days later.

==United States military service==
[[File:SS Kaiser Wilhelm II.jpg|thumb|Postcard of ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'']]
[[File:SS Kaiser Wilhelm II..jpg|thumb| As USS ''Agamemnon'']]
She was seized by the U.S. Government when it declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917, and work soon began to repair her machinery, sabotaged earlier by a German caretaker crew, and otherwise prepare the ship for use as a transport. While this work progressed, she was employed as a [[Engineering:Barracks ship|barracks ship]] at the New York Navy Yard.

The U.S. Navy placed the ship in commission as USS ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' (ID-3004) in late August 1917. Her name was changed to ''Agamemnon'' at the beginning of September and active war work commenced at the end of October, when she left for her first troopship voyage to France. While at sea on 9 November 1917, she was damaged in a collision with another large ex-German transport, {{USS|Von Steuben|ID-3017|6}}, but delivered her passengers to the war zone a few days later. Following her return to the U.S. in December and subsequent repair work, ''Agamemnon'' again steamed to France in mid-January 1918 and thereafter regularly crossed the Atlantic as part of the effort to establish a major American military presence on the Western Front. The routine was occasionally punctuated by encounters with real or suspected [[Engineering:U-boat|U-boat]]s and, during the autumn of 1918, with outbreaks of [[Medicine:Influenza|influenza]] on board.

[[File:USS Agamemnon ID-3004 H98558.jpg|thumb|300px|left|USS ''Agamemnon'' at Hampton Roads in February 1919]]

In mid-December 1918, just over a month after the Armistice ended the fighting, ''Agamemnon'' began to bring Americans home from France. She made nine voyages by August 1919, carrying nearly 42,000 service personnel, some four thousand more than she had transported overseas during wartime. USS ''Agamemnon'' was decommissioned in late August and turned over to the War Department for further use as a U.S. Army Transport. Laid up after the middle 1920s, she was renamed ''Monticello'' in 1927 but had no further active service.  ''Monticello'' was considered too old for future use and sold for scrap in 1940.

==References==
*{{DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/a/agamemnon.html}}
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [http://www.lostliners.com/Liners/German_Lloyd/kaiserII.html Lostliners: SS ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'']
* {{navsource|12/173004|USS Agamemnon (ID-3004)}}
*[https://www.gjenvick.com/Immigration/Steerage/FellowshipOfTheSteerage-1905.html Description of Passenger Conditions in the Steerage] and second class passenger compartments on the ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' in 1905
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20091010111609/http://www.thegreatoceanliners.com/kwII2.html ''Kaiser Wilhelm II'' on The Great Ocean Liners]
* [http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-a/id3004.htm photo gallery] at Naval Historical Center

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{{s-bef|before={{SS|Deutschland|1900|2}}}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Earth:Blue Riband|Atlantic Eastbound Record]] |years=1904–1907}}
{{s-aft|after={{RMS|Lusitania|3=2}}}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaiser Wilhelm II, SS}}
[[Category:Steamships]]

nl:Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

{{Sourceattribution|SS Kaiser Wilhelm II}}