USAT Thomas H. Barry

Thomas H. Barry was a troop transport that served with the U.S. Army during World War II. Intended for transfer to the United States Navy and assigned the hull number AP-45, she never served in that role but stayed an army troopship. Prior to her war service, she served for 11 years as the ocean liner SS Oriente.

Service history

SS Oriente — a steel-hulled, twin-screw passenger and cargo ship launched on 15 May 1930 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, for the New York and Cuba Mail and Steamship Company's Ward Line. She was the sister to the infamous ill-fated Morro Castle that was destroyed in a fire that killed 134 people. The Oriente was acquired by the War Department in June 1941 for use as an Army transport, who named her the USAT Thomas H. Barry.

On 29 September 1941, the Acting Chief of Naval Operations, Rear Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, sent a memorandum to the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, listing a number of Army transports — including Thomas H. Barry — that were to be "eventually taken over by the Navy." Thomas H. Barry was later designated AP-45. However, the transport was never taken over by the Navy and remained under Army control through the end of World War II. She was declared surplus to US Navy needs, laid up in 1950 at the reserve fleet in the James River, and remained there until she was scrapped by Bethlehem Steel in 1957.

References

• Thomas H. Barry - DANFS Online.
• AP-45 Thomas H. Barry, Navsource Online.
• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.