I suspect this may be a dead end.
I was able to find some of what may be the same information you found, namely picture postcards or photographs of passenger ships named COMET and ARROW, operated by the Colonial Navigation Company, with the postcards or photographs being in the collection of the Providence Public Library, or sold on E-Bay or other websites. See, for example, http://www.provlib.org/boats-and-steamboats/ss-comet and http://www.provlib.org/boats-and-steamboats/comet for photographs of COMET.
In another case, there is a postcard with a July 1939 postmark; see https://www.cardcow.com/204853/ssarrow-comet-colonial-line-transportation-boats-ships/. The same postcard describes ARROW and COMET as "twin" ships.
This information conflicts in at least two respects to what I found for USS COMET. The photographs and postcards show a ship of arguably "older" vintage, not at all similar to the class C2 ship that was USS COMET. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Comet_%28AP-166%29#mediaviewer/File:USS_Comet_%28AP-166%29.jpg for a photograph of USS COMET (AP-166)). Second, according to the postmark on the one postcard, this COMET was in operation at least as early as 1939, whereas USS COMET was not built until 1942.
I believe I have found additional information on the COMET that was owned by Colonial Navigation. There were two passenger ships constructed by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine, in 1907 and 1909, originally named CAMDEN and BELFAST, respectively. In 1936 both ships were apparently sold and renamed COMET and ARROW, respectively. COMET was scrapped in 1950 and ARROW was wrecked in 1947. Additionally, both ships are described as being of 2,153 tons and thereby likely were twin ships as mentioned above. There is no mention of Colonial Navigation in this record but that company may have been the buyer in 1936. See http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/2large/active/bath.htm and scroll to hull numbers 47 and 48. I'm reasonably sure that the above accounts for the COMET owned by Colonial Navigation.
Of course this also means there were at least three ships named COMET afloat during World War II: the above ship, plus USS COMET, plus the tanker named COMET. (As for the tanker, I have found evidence that she operated in the Atlantic and Caribbean at least as of early 1945 -- and had an Armed Guard detachment aboard. I had surmised that she had operated exclusively in the Great Lakes during World War II but apparently not.) With three ships of the same name in the same time period, the possibility of confusing the three is very high, to state the obvious. Whether COMET of the Colonial Navigation Company had a military role in the war I cannot say.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster
Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website
www.armed-guard.com
Responses
« Back to index | View thread »