JE 6  Quistconck
The First "Hog Island" Type A Freighter
August 5, 1918, Aprox 5700 grt

    By the middle of 1915, it had become painfully obvious to US leaders that the American Merchant Marine was totally incapable of fulfilling the country's shipping requirements during World War 1.  Among the remedies proposed to rectify the situation was the construction of the then world's largest shipyard on an island in the Delaware River outside of Philadelphia.  Less than two years later, the first of what would become 110 near identical freighters, and 12 closely related transports would be launched.  Quistconck was christened and named by First Lady Edith Wilson.  At her suggestion, the ship was named for the Delware Indian word for Hog Island, the place where the shipyard was built.  By July 1920 the yard was closed, the victim of bad government planning.
    The ships themselves proved to be much more permanent than the yard that built them.  They were refitted in many ways, becoming tankers, passenger liners, refrigerator ships, and even naval auxiliaries.  They performed yoeman service through the '20s, the Great Depression, WWII, and even Korea.  Some of them lasted all the way to the late 1960s.  Quistconck herself served Lykes Lines and its subsidiaries for a large portion of her career, which is why she is painted in their colors.  At the beginning of WWII she was sold to the British Ministry of War Transport, renamed Empire Barracuda, and sunk on 12/15/41.

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