HMS Smiter (D55)

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Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	10 May 1943
Launched:	27 September 1943
Commissioned (RN):	20 January 1944
Decommissioned:	6 May 1946
Fate:	merchant ship SS Artillero wrecked 1967
Struck:	6 May 1946
General Characteristics
Displacement:	7,800 tons
Length:	495 ft 8 in (151.1 m)
Beam:	69 ft 6 in (21.2 m)
Draft:	26 ft (7.9 m)
Propulsion:
Speed:	17.5 knots
Range:
Depth:
Complement:	890 officers and men
Armament:	2 × 5 inch guns, 4 × twin 40 mm Bofors, 10 × single 20 mm Oerlikon
Aircraft:	28
Motto:

The USS Vermillion (CVE-52) (previously AVG-52 then later ACV-52) was laid down on 10 May 1943 by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp., as a Bogue-class auxiliary aircraft carrier; redesignated an escort aircraft carrier, CVE-52, on 10 June 1943; assigned to the United Kingdom under Lend-Lease on 23 June 1943; launched on 27 September 1943; and accepted by Britain on 20 January 1944.

Commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Smiter (D55), a “Ruler-class” escort carrier, she served the British throughout the remainder of World War II. She returned to the United States at Norfolk, Virginia on 20 March 1946 and was officially transferred back to the United States Navy on 6 April 1946. She was immediately determined to be surplus to the needs of the Navy and was designated for sale. Her name was struck from the Navy Registry on 6 May 1946. On 28 January 1947, she was sold to the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Norfolk, Va., for conversion to mercantile service. She was subsequently resold to Compania Argentina de Navigacion Dodero, S.A., and entered mercantile service in 1948 at Buenos Aires as the SS Artillero (renamed President Garcia in 1965). She was wrecked off Guernsey in July 1967, deemed a total loss and was scrapped at Hamburg in November of the same year.