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USS Inca (SP-1212)

patrol vessel of the United States Navy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ7870369 ↗
Source-derived summary

USS Inca (SP-1212) was a 62-foot-long motorboat leased by the U.S. Navy during World War I. She was outfitted as a patrol craft, but was additionally assigned other duties, such as rescue craft, seaplane tender, and dispatch boat. She served in the Boston, Massachusetts, and Hampton Roads, Virginia, waterways until war's end when she was returned to her owner.

Constructed in Rhode Island

The third ship to be so named by the U.S. Navy, Inca was a motorboat, built in 1917 and acquired by the Navy from her owner, F. B. McQuesten of Boston, Massachusetts. USS Inca, a 23-ton motor patrol boat, was one of a group of nine motorboats built by Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1917 in the expectation that their private owners would make them available for First World War service.

She was acquired by the Navy in July 1917 and commissioned 28 July 1917 at Boston.

World War I service

A versatile craft, Inca was first assigned to the First Naval District and patrolled outer Boston Harbor. She also performed coast convoy duties with submarines during this period, and acted as test ship for submarine signaling and detector devices.

She was reassigned to Fifth Naval District in October 1917 and arrived at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 3 November. Inca's job was to serve as rescue ship for aircraft from the Naval Air Station on flights over the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River.

She also served as a seaplane tender during 1918, and spent time on harbor patrol in Hampton Roads.

Editorial summary

“USS Inca (SP-1212)” enters the record as patrol vessel of the United States Navy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Inca, SP-1212 and patrol can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1212, 1917, 1918—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Inca, SP-1212 and patrol.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“USS Inca (SP-1212)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Inca, SP-1212 and patrol provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7870369. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1212, 1917 and 1918.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow USS Inca (SP-1212) primary sources, USS Inca (SP-1212) archive and Inca research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “USS Inca (SP-1212)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.