During World War II the U.S. Army operated approximately 127,793[1] ships and watercraft. Those included large troop and cargo transport ships that were Army owned hulls, vessels allocated by the War Shipping Administration, bareboat charters and time charters. In addition to the transports the Army fleet included specialized types. Those, included vessels not related to transport such as mine vessels and waterway or port maintenance ships and other service craft. The numbers below [1] give an idea of the scope of that Army maritime operation:
Limiting the number to only the named and numbered vessels, discounting the various simple barges and amphibious assault craft, the remaining number is 14,044 vessels.
This fleet and the Army’s Ports of Embarkation[2][3][4] operated throughout the war’s massive logistics in support of the worldwide operations. After the war the Army’s fleet began to resume its peacetime role and even regain the old colors of gray hulls, white deck houses and buff trimming, masts and booms with the red, white and blue stack rings. An example may be seen in the photos of the U.S.A.T. Fred C. Ainsworth.
Then came the reorganization that led to the U.S. Department of Defense rather than a separate United States Department of War and Department of the Navy with the decision on maritime logistics going in favor of it being administered by the Navy. As a result Army lost almost all its big vessels. Many of the Army vessels were transferred to Navy with the transport types becoming components of the new Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS now MSC) under Navy[5][6]. Some of the Army’s specialized vessels became Navy commissioned ships (USS) or non-commissioned utility vessels. Digital photographs[7] of a few of these vessels in Army service are provided at the Naval History and Heritage Command. Others were sold commercially or simply scrapped.
The Army heritage of civilian crewed transports and cargo ships continued in the operating model for MSTS and its “in service” non-commissioned ships designated as U.S. Naval Ship (USNS). Some Army vessels, still crewed by Army civilians, just transferred were suddenly sailing before fully taking on the new service’s administrative functions and colors[8].
The Army still operates vessels of many types.[9] These are the ships currently active under the U.S. Army, excluding the United States Army Corps of Engineers ships.
Six Liberty ships were converted at Point Clear, Alabama into floating aircraft repair depots, operated by the Army Transport Service, starting in April 1944 to provide mobile depot support for B-29 Superfortress and P-51 Mustangs based on Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa beginning in December 1944. They were also fitted with landing platforms to accommodate four R-4 helicopters, creating the first seagoing helicopter-equipped ships, and provided medical evacuation of combat casualties in both the Philippines and Okinawa.[10]
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Design 427 (Vessel, Supply, Aircraft Repair, Diesel, Steel, 180')
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Through allocation from the War Shipping Administration the Army assembled a motley collection of 6 repair ships. Five similar in size, 350-390 feet and the 202 foot James B. Houston, previously named the USAT Kivichak, which had been grounded in British Columbia in 1941. She was salvaged and pressed back into service because of the wartime shortage of ships. The transportation Corps was spared the challenge of manning these vessels by turning them over to Coast Guard crews while retaining administrative control. These ships all served in the southwest Pacific area, operating in New Guinea and the Philippines
The Army had its own program for small boat construction and directly procured vessels and water craft that were under 200 feet or under 1,000 gross tons.
Army F-ships (100-dwt) were little freighters built on the lines of a Dutch wooden shoe and had a capacity of about 100 tons with a maximum speed of 8 knots. During the war these little ships plied back and forth between Navy PT boat bases, Crash Rescue Boat bases, and Engineer Special Brigade bases in the pacific for the purpose of transporting personnel, hauling supplies and cargo, or occasionally for towing fuel barges and water craft, to bases along the coasts or to nearby islands.
Design 216 (Boat, Supply, Diesel, Steel, 99')
Design 225 (Boat, Supply, Ice-Breaker, Diesel, Steel, 102')
Eleven of these small ships were built for the U.S. Army Air Corps/Army Air Forces in late 1942 through mid 1943.[11] The official designation was "Design No. 210, 150 Foot Steel Diesel Retrieving Vessel", sometimes termed "Aircraft Retrieving Vessel" in later references. Name format was "U.S. Army" over "H.A.# NAME" as indicated by a builder's model. Dimensions were 158' 3" LOA X 32' beam (moulded) at deck X 8' draft powered by two 300 hp diesels.[12] and was equipped with a 30 ton jumbo lift boom along with regular cargo booms and had a cargo capacity of 500 measurement tons. These vessels were primarily used as supply ships, that could retrieve aircraft if needed.
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The Army had a history of submarine cable work by the time of World War II operations dating back to the 1899-1900 period[13]. Much of this work had been in relation to communications with far flung Army forces in the Philippines and Alaska[14]. The Army Signal Corps used a number of cable ships for that work including Burnside, Romulus, Liscum, Dellwood and two vessels intimately associated with the Coast Artillery Corps controlled mine work at the coastal fortifications; Cyrus W. Field and Joseph Henry. That cable laying capability had been allowed to deteriorate to the point that the Army had to charter the C.S. Restorer in 1941[15].
The Army entered the field of undersea cable work in connecting the military installations in the Philippine Islands[13]. As with other cable work, some vessels were chartered. For example the vessel Orizaba (not the later Army owned vessel of the same name) was under Army charter from the Pacific Coast Steamship Company before being lost in 1900 [1]. The first ship supplied by the Quartermaster Corps to the Signal Corps for cable work was the U. S. Army Transport Burnside[16]. That Spanish American War prize was replaced by the larger Dellwood for work with Alaskan cables.
There is some confusion on ship designators within even official records. The conventional commercial and nautical term for such ships was “C.S. (name)” for “Cable Ship.” The mix of U.S.A.T., C.S. and even the simple “Steam Ship” (S.S.) as seen in postwar construction of the SS William H. G. Bullard, later the USS/USNS Neptune[17] can be somewhat confusing. All three terms are found in official usage. For example, Smithsonian Institution library records clearly show some of these Army ships as C.S. Dellwood, C.S. Silverado[18]. Army’s ship management lay in the Quartermaster Corps and later the Transportation Corps. Technical management of the cable ships was under Signal Corps and the entire enterprise of undersea cable work was the very specialized realm of several large communications corporations which operated their own cable vessels and provided experts in handling cable equipment and cable. Each appears to have used familiar terms when noting the ships in records as seen in the Quartermaster reference[16] and the records elsewhere[13][18].
The nature of the work is such that specialized crews are required to operate the cable machinery and so the actual cable splicing and technical work. The ex-Coast Artillery ships involved in mine planting were military crewed[1]. The C.S. Restorer was under charter and used civilians, many from its commercial crew, under Army contract[19]. The remaining ships were probably mixed crews[1].
Eleven Transportation Corps ships under technical management of Signal Corps are known to have been active in WW II[1]:
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Ten ships, nine being Maritime Commission type N3-M-A1 cargo vessel hulls being built at Penn Jersey Shipbuilding for the U.S. Navy or Lend Lease, were transferred to the Army for operation as Engineer Port Repair Ships. The other ship, first obtained for the purpose, was a commercial ship allocated by the War Shipping Administration. All the ships were managed and crewed by the Army Engineers organized into Engineer Port Repair Ship Crew units, named for Army Engineers killed in action during WW II and heavily modified from their original design.
WSA allocated the WW I vintage Josephine Lawrence to be converted to:
N3-M-A1 types:
Some of these were substantial vessels, 300 feet long, with a 3,000-ton displacement and a crew complement of 60-plus men. They were seagoing diesel-electric hydraulic dredging vessels, normally functioning under the Corps of Engineers control and used for maintaining and improving the coastal and harbor channels around the U.S. coasts.
During World War II , five seagoing hopper dredges already in civil service, were fitted with 3-inch deck guns and 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns. Four were sent to the ETO and one, the 'Hains', was sent to the PTO along with the cutter dredge 'Raymond', additionally four new Hains class armed dredges were constructed for use in the PTO.
Hains Class hopper dredge
Towed cutter dredge
The U.S. Army Mine Planter Service (AMPS), under the Coast Artillery Corps, operated ships designated as U.S. Army Mine Planter (USAMP) to plant the controlled mines guarding approaches to coastal fortifications[21]. Numerous smaller vessels not designated as USAMP worked with the planters in a mine flotilla[22].
Numbered planters constructed during WW II[23][24]:
Note: Cyrus W. Field was a Signal Corps ship closely associated with mine cable work and sometimes listed with the planters. Joseph Henry was a cable ship transferred to the Coast Artillery Corps. Both were associated with the next generation of mine planter development that incorporated some cable capability into the 1917 and 1909 ships. [23][25]
Smaller vessels known as, "junior mine planters", or "pup planters", were occasionally employed as mine planters, but for the most part they served as freight and passenger boats for river and harbor duty.
This is a list, presently incomplete, of ships in Army service under one of the following arrangements:
Ships known to fall in each of these categories appear in the list below.[1]
In general only ships owned, under long term bareboat charter or allocation to the Army, first through the Quartermaster Corps and later the Transportation Corps, were formally designated as a U.S. Army Transport (U.S.A.T.).[1] Those under other arrangements continued operating as SS NAME. Essentially all maritime commercial cargo and passenger type vessels were under strict control of WSA under Executive Order No. 9054. Exempted from WSA control were combatants, vessels owned by Army or Navy and coastal and inland vessels.[26]
The FS numbered vessels and Army tugs do not normally have U.S.A.T. in their names. They and other smaller Army craft were simply designated as Army with "U.S. Army" over the number (photos).
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