USS Scandinavia

USS Scandinavia was a patrol vessel in commission in the United States Navy from 1918 to 1919, seeing service in World War I. After her U.S. Navy service, she was in commission in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey as the survey launch USC&GS Scandinavia from 1919.

Construction

Scandinavia was built as a civilian motorboat of the same name by the G. T. Taylor Marine Railway at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1916.

United States Navy service

The U.S. Navy acquired Scandinavia from Bie and Schiott of Baltimore, Maryland, on either 3 or 5 October 1918 for World War I service in the section patrol. The Navy commissioned her on 5 October 1918 as USS Scandinavia.
The Navy assigned Scandinavia to duty with the Naval Overseas Transportation Service district supervisor at Baltimore for service as a dispatch boat and pilot boat. She carried out these duties during the final five and a half weeks of and for a few months in its immediate aftermath. On 21 May 1919, she was decommissioned, stricken from the Navy list, and transferred to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey service

The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey commissioned the vessel as USC&GS Scandinavia and placed her in service as a survey launch. Photographs of Scandinavia during her Coast and Geodetic Survey career show her performing wire-drag operations in support of hydrographic survey work in the Territory of Alaska in 1920 and operating in Southeast Alaska in 1927.