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The very name of their type signified the goal toward which they were built, and hundreds of Victory ships did make significant contributions to the winning of World War II. In the conflicts which followed in Korea and Vietnam, the military results were less satisfactory than before, but that lack of success was in spite of, rather than because of, these fine ships. Amidst the confusing combinations of hot war, cold war, peace, detente, and stalemate that have characterized the last three decades, the type has continued to turn in dependable, enormously useful performance in both military and merchant colors. That the Victory ships have served well and still do so today provides vivid testimony to the practicality, versatility, and durability of their design and construction.
The largest merchant shipbuilding effort during World War II was the Liberty ship program. Shipbuilders turned out more than 2,700 ships on a mass production basis. The original idea for the Victory was to develop a better and faster ship to speed up cargo movements and replace the 11-knot Liberty. The new vessels were considered "emergency” ships when conceived, but in April 1943, the designator was changed from EC2-S-AP1 to VC2-S-AP1, and the term "Victory ship” was adopted.
A typical designator, EC2-S-AP1, broke down as follows:
E—Emergency; V—Victory C—Cargo 2—400 to 449 feet S—Steam; M—Motor AP—Design letters for ship’s hull 1—original ship; 2—first conversion; 3—second conversion
Victory ships were turned out by the dozens in the waning months of World War II. At right, the SS Drury Victory is shown shortly before launching at the Permanente Metals Corp. shipyard at Richmond, California in the summer of 1945. The inset shows a number of Haskell (APA-117)-class attack transports being built by the California Shipbuilding Corp. at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California.
The hull form was designed to accommodate a range of horsepower with little difference in optimum performance. The designations of the variations originally planned included:
► EC2-S-AP1—5,500-horsepower Lentz engine
► EC2-S-AP2—6,000-horsepower Victory-type engine
► EC2-S-AP3—8,500-horsepower C3-type turbine
► EC2-M-AP4—5,850-horsepower Diesel
► VC2-S-AP5—8,500-horsepower Victory configured as a transport (APA)
(In the first four of these designations, the E was changed to a V in 1943.)
The Lentz-type engine was built and tested at the Naval Boiler and Turbine Laboratory, Philadelphia Navy Yard, in 1943. The Lentz principle of steam distribution was used in reciprocating steam engines using poppet valves with the engine arranged as double compounds and in line. The basic engine developed
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major problems during testing and was dropped as a prime mover for the Victory ship because industry was not experienced in the necessary type of casting. Moreover, manufacturers had already worked out details for quantity production of 6,000-horsepower turbines which were called the Victory type. The 8,500-horsepower C3 type was installed in the AP3-type ships as turbine and gear production eased near the end of World War II. Though planned, Diesel propulsion engines were never installed in production versions of Victory ships. (The Emory Victory did get one as part of a feasibility test. She was later renamed the SS North Star 111 and operated in Alaskan waters for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.) The Navy took a keen interest in the speed of the AP3 type and the ease with which it could be transformed into a troop transport. This interest developed into the AP5-type attack transport.
There were 4l4 cargo types and 117 transports completed among the Victory ships, all of which were built between 1944 and 1946. Some of these fine vessels are still sailing today in private steamship companies and in the Military Sealift Command (MSC). Until recent years, several Victories were part of the active Navy fleet as well. A few AP5 transports remain on the Navy list for possible reactivation.
The basic characteristics of the cargo version are shown below:
Length overall—455 feet, 3 inches Length between perpendiculars—436 feet, 6 inches Beam, extreme—62 feet, 1 inch Depth to main deck, molded—38 feet, 0 inches Draft, loaded—28 feet, 0 inches Gross tonnage (approximate)—7,200 Net tonnage (approximate)—4,300 Deadweight tonnage, total—10,600 Displacement tons at 28-foot draft—15,200 Speed of AP2 type—15.5 knots Speed of AP3 type—17 knots Speed of AP5 type—17.7 knots (14,837-ton displacement)
There is nothing complicated about the design of a Victory ship. The hull lines were made simple and conventional, in keeping with the ship’s design objectives of simplicity and ease of construction. The five hatches are serviced by electric winches and provide easy access for maintenance.
The Victories were built in emergency shipyards set up during World War II. The ship design was prepared to accommodate the smallest capacity crane of these yards. Moreover, the individual yards could modify the standard plans to suit their methods of construction. The planning for the building of these ships was outstanding by all concerned, and the entire program was a tribute to American know-how. Delivery dates were ahead of schedule in many shipyards because of the urgency of the need for shipping and the commitment to meet that need. We would do well to exhibit that sort of commitment today.
Once built, these ships demonstrated in three wars their ability to get the job done—to carry the men and cargo where they were needed. Many a Victory stood off an invasion beachhead in the midst of an amphibious assault. Many more proved themselves steady workhorses in moving thousands of tons of goods to faraway ports.
These old hulls, originally designed for cargo, still find many uses today, including service in the nucleus fleet of the MSC. The USNS Greenville Victory (T-AK-237), for example, is an AP3 type. She is manned by a Civil Service crew and has retained her basic design characteristics with no major conversions. Her usual mission is to carry Department of Defense cargoes in point-to-point operation, but in the spring of 1975, she transported thousands of South Vietnamese refugees in the evacuation of that doomed nation. The role was reminiscent of that played by the SS Meredith Victory which in 1950 evacuated 14,000 Korean civilians in her cargo holds during the siege of Hungnam.
Four of the Victory-class vessels have undergone substantial modification for their work as part of the MSC’s fleet support program. There are the USNS Norwalk (T-AK-279), USNS Furman (T-AK-280), USNS Victoria (T-AK-281), and USNS Marshfield (T-AK-282), which are fleet ballistic missile cargo ships. They carry torpedoes, spare parts, packaged petroleum, and Poseidon missiles themselves to the deployed submarine tenders and thence to the submarines.
Victory ships are also classed as surveying ships. The USNS Bowditch (T-AGS-21) and the USNS Dutton (T- AGS-22) were converted in 1957-58 to conduct ocean hydrographic surveys. These ships are the AP3 type and are the cx-South Bend Victory and Tuskegee Victory respectively. The conversions consisted of the installation of highly sensitive navigation equipment to pinpoint their position during surveys. They are designed to chart the ocean floor and to record magnetic fields and gravity.
Related in mission is the USNS Kingsport (T-AG-164). As an AP3 cargo type, she was known as SS Kingsport Victory, but her last name is gone now that she is wearing MSC markings and serving as a hydrographic research ship. For a time in the early 1960s, she was the world’s first satellite communications ship.
The USNS Range Sentinel (T-AGM-22) was originally the USS Sherburne (APA-205), an AP5 type. She was converted in 1969-71 to a range instrumentation ship. The conversion added an extensive array of ultramodern
radar and telemetry equipment used for downrange fracking of missiles for the Navy’s Poseidon program. The conversion was mostly below decks where electronics gear and workshops were added. A number of tracking antennas were mounted topside. Another AGM still in the MSC fleet is the USNS Wheeling (T-AGM-si), the former Seton Hall Victory. She was converted in the early 1960s and assigned to the Pacific Missile Range. Among her other duties, she was involved in the test- frig of the AWG-9 fire control system used in the F-i4 Tomcat.
vice, although there is still a slight possibility that one or more attack transports might be reactivated.
For all their value as specialized Navy or Military Sealift Command ships, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Victories have been primarily cargo vessels. They comprised a majority of the cargo ships brought out of the mothball fleet during the Vietnam War. The cost of activating one of them was about $400,000.
Four Victories of the AP3 type were made into refrigerated stores ships for the Navy. The last of these, the Uss Denebola (AF-56), was decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on 30 April 1976. She was the last Victory hull in commissioned U. S. Navy ser-
A Time for Victories 55
(The original cost of each Victory was in the $2-3 million range.) Their conditions of readiness varied, depending on many different factors and the operational wear and tear they had experienced since completion. A few of these ships encountered major difficulties °n their initial voyages after activation, but most did not.
Our military effort in Vietnam would have been severely hampered without Victory ships. The logistics supply train required approximately 400,000 to 600,000 tons of supplies per month flowing into Southeast Asia. The available operational tonnage of our merchant marine was pressed into service to meet the flow of material to Vietnam, and the U. S. Government activated ships from the maritime reserve fleets to meet the added, heavy logistic demand. A large majority of the ships in the reserve fleet were Victories. About 130 of them were reactivated in the 1960s in order to haul cargo to the Far East. These ships were already old then and often referred to as "rustbuckets,” but they performed a vital service.
That service was not without hazards. The SS Baton Rouge Victory was sunk in the Long Tau River by a Viet Cong mine in August 1966, temporarily blocking a major supply channel to Saigon. The ship’s engine room was flooded, and several American seamen were killed. The SS Clarksburg Victory, loaded with military cargo, struck a submerged object at the mouth of the Saigon River en route to Cam Ranh Bay in the fall of 1966. She was disabled by a flooded engine room.
The availability and usefulness of the Victories taken °ut of the reserve fleet for the Korean and Vietnam conflicts well demonstrated their value. But where will the United States be in a few more years when the last Victory ships have exhausted their useful lives? Will we be able to support any sealift operations five years from now? Can we continue to ignore the vital necessity for building ships? Containerships are fine, but they have their limitations, particularly in the sorts of military sealift situations for which our ships will probably be required. We are unlikely to be transporting materials to sophisticated containerports, nor is it likely that commercial operators will be able to make many containerships available on short notice because they will still have their own schedules to maintain.
Typical scenarios for contingency operations call for logistic resupply of forces in or near Third World nations. And that’s why it would not be unreasonable to build 200 breakbulk Victory ships right now in addition to the more modern types already under con-
Opposite page, top, the USS Denebola (AF-5 6). Center, the «r-Notre Dame Victory was converted to a Great Lakes ore carrier. Bottom, Poseidon missiles are transported in tubes just forward of superstructure in the USNS Marshfield (T-AK-282), an FBM support ship. Below, a merchant version of the Victory ship is the SS Mormacelm. Bottom, attack transports under way in 1963. In foreground are the Victories USS Talladega (APA-208) and USS Renville (APA-227).
struction. Planners must face the fact that existing ships grow old and tired while potential problems have little respect for a once-mighty Victory fleet with greatly reduced current strength.
The advantages of building 200 Victory ships for the 1980s and beyond include:
► Shipyard personnel will "think” production and enhance their production capability.
► The simple, proven, functional design lends itself to series production.
► The reliability of the Victory machinery plant is proven over many years of operation, and training crews and engineers requires a minimum of time due to the ease of operating the machinery.
► The quantity of ships produced can be used for sealift emergencies and for upgrading the nonsubsidized fleets during times of peace.
► The program will allow operators to retain their customers and prevent foreign flag takeover.
► The cost of the program would be less than any small quantity programs under way today, based on dollars per ship.
Some people will consider this kind of program as regression. But this is an emergency measure to save the American merchant marine, not the optimum kind of program that the maritime industry and government would like to promote. Many of the experts say the American merchant marine is in serious trouble. They hammer away at what isn’t being done, but they don’t offer specific solutions to the problems. This Victory ship program is an idea for a specific solution to help our merchant marine, but is not intended to solve all the ills of our "fourth arm of defense.”
There is no time for "nice-to-have” designs. The
Merchant Marine Act of 1970 may eventually revitalize the American sealift capability for both military and commercial purposes. But chances for success are bleak, and we may end up with no merchant marine at all. If 200 much-needed Victory ships were built within the next few years, they could reverse the downward trend that has steadily eroded our shipping resources for the last three decades. As Victories, they would thus be well-named indeed.
Captain Culver was commissioned and received a merchant marine engineer's license upon graduation from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in 1947. His active Navy duty was served from 1947 to 1952 on board the USS Weiss (APD-135), the USS Tumult (AM-127), USS Linnet (AMS-24), USS Gull (AMS-16), and USS Hubbard (DD- 748). He has seen merchant sea duty in the SS American Pilot, SS American Mariner, SS Saucon, SS Hunter Victory, and SS Mormac- wave. An engineering duty officer in the Naval Reserve, he was avionics officer of Reserve Jet Squadron VA-911, executive officer and commanding officer of Naval Reserve Officers School 1-7, Naval Reserve Engineering Unit 1-1, Boston, and Ship Maintenance and Repair Unit 4001, Boston. He is now commanding officer of Advance Ship Repair Base-Floating Workshop (ASRB-YR 201), Newport. He holds a B.S. degree in marine engineering, a chief engineer’s license in the merchant marine, and a professional engineer’s license in the state of Massachusetts. Compiler of Ships of the U. S. Merchant Fleet, published in 1963, he also wrote an article on merchant shipping for Naval Review 1966. He now works at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard where he is an industrial engineer for the Naval Sea Systems Command.