The first USS Panther (AD-6), the former SS Venezuela, was an auxiliary cruiser and naval troop transport in the United States Navy. The U.S. Navy purchased Panther from the Red D Line Steamship Company on 12 April 1898, and commissioned her at New York on 22 April 1898, Commander George Cook Reiter in command.
Service history
Spanish–American War, 1898–1899
Panther was pressed into service immediately after commissioning on the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, and was hastily converted into a troop transport. On 27 April 1898 the ship took aboard the First Marine battalion commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert W. Huntington in preparation for combat operations in Cuba, sailing from Brooklyn, New York just five days later.
After the war, her duties took her to ports such as Kirkwall, Scotland; Devonport, England; Lisbon, and Ponta Delgada. In 1921, American interest shifted to China; the Navy's Yangtze River Patrol had operated there for some years, guaranteeing the prevention of strife and the protection of persons and interests in the region. Panther joined the Asiatic Station's Yangtze River Patrol, where she patrolled on station until May 1922, when she returned stateside to decommission.