Talk:SS Sea Marlin

Whoa! Changes are major and inaccurate.

I just ran across a very inaccurate change to SS Sea Marlin in which you have turned a non Navy ship into an "attack transport"—a type of ship only operated as commissioned USN ships. The ship was never even marginally connected with the Navy as can be seen from its Vessel Status Card covering its associations from delivery to USMC straight to War Shipping Administration custody (USMC/WSA were closely connected). Attack transports are specialized ships designed to deliver combat ready forces onto "hot" landings. They are "combat loaded" so that all equipment the landing forces aboard will need in the assault are not only aboard but packed in a way unloading will be a smooth, linear process; i.e., last things to unload are loaded first so they can smoothly and quickly sent in after the first landing wave from the ship. This is counter to "convoy loaded" for normal transports where debarkation will be in rear areas, units aboard may be highly mixed from nurses to combat elements and cargo is stowed for most efficient use of ships and may not even include all the cargo for the units aboard on the same ship.

As you can see from the VSC, this ship was operated by Grace Lines 31 January 1944, not naval personnel, under a General Agency Agreement (GAA) until put into reserve 9 May 1946. The ship was allocated to Army and thus the USAT you changed. I would have changed that too, though leaving a note, because the ship was never designated United States Army Transport (U.S.A.T.) being always "allocated" with WSA managing the contract operator. The U.S.A.T. is by no means as formal as U.S.S., used only for ships in commission or an honorific post commission, but I agree with Grover's discussion in U.S. Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II that in practice it only should apply to ships owned or bareboat chartered by Army in which Army totally managed the ship, its crews and maintenance—including painting "United States Army Transport" over its name and using that in records. In any case, Sea Marlin was an ordinary transport, "convoy loaded" (that was an important WSA function, making sure ships carried all they could) operated by Grace Line as WSA's agent under the "usual terms" (general agreement) until retired into the reserve fleet. Palmeira (talk) 15:26, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Hold your horses there, @Palmeira:. "Good faith" error, happily corrected with your assistance. The page had referred to itself as "USAT" when I stared working on it (and still does); all I've been trying to do is get to the bottom of just what it was (since it was calling itself an "attack transport"). As you can see in this AM's edits, I winnowed out any chance it was a Windsor class C3-S-A2 hull, and was busy cleaning the rest the article up (often composed like something out of a scrapbook) before doubling back to refine or remove the "attack transport" designation.

Indeed, I could use some help properly classifying and designating a class of "Sea" prefixed transports used during WWII, of which this was one: the roster I'm first interested in identifying and grouping are those of the C3-S-A2 hulls produced by Ingolls and Western Pipe (principally) intermixed with the run of ATs those two yards produced.

Yesterday I went through (and listed at the AT page, where they had been absent) fifteen classes of ATs trying to get to the bottom of what you are clearly exponentially better informed on. I openly invite your help. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 16:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

What I noticed was a sudden change in one of the ships often mistakenly tagged with "USAT" that suddenly became an Attack transport and associated with Navy. As above, lots of ships here get tagged with USS, a very clear line and question. Was the ship commissioned (USN is very big noting that event) and if the answer is "No" then USS is improper almost to the point of a naval social blunder. It is a "reserved" term. It is like calling some U.S. politician President "Smith" when the closest they got was perhaps failed candidate. It is fairly easy to check on that essential commissioned or not. Army did not "commission" or much care since Army officers didn't command ships anyway. The line there can be a bit fuzzy and much complicated by troop accounts. Most soldiers thought they were on Navy ships half the time anyway and many an account talks of being transported on "USS Something" when it wasn't. Their second guess, a bit more accurate was U.S.A.T. because if there were troops aboard there was a TC contingent aboard. On the big troopers that contingent was like a small base staff and, for the troops, the "big man" was the Transport Commander—who you will see from the FM 55-105 reference had zero to do with running the ship and on ship matters answered to the master (ship's captain to most). I've seen family history sites with "Col. Smith, Captain of Army Transport—nope, Colonels didn't do that in Army and then it turns out someone confused "Transport Commander" with the ship's master/captain. FM 55-105 Water Transportation: Oceangoing Vessels (September 25, 1944) is very detailed on roles and responsibilities for each ship arrangement and anyone writing about Army ships should read it carefully and look closely at Appendix II, Organization and Relationships.

Some key references, ones I use and even have on my drives occasionally: [Shipbuilding History Shipbuilding History] as a start. Tim Colton has compiled very good records of shipbuilders and the ships. So, for your "Sea" ships: at Ingalls see Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula MS. There they are in builder's hull number order with the U.S. Official Number (O.N.) and in some lists the MC number. You will see he has gone into some history in the far right column, not always complete, but solid leads usually. So, their first ship, Sea Eagle did go Navy, as Custer and become an Attack Transport on going from the Transport AP-85 to APA-40. Now go to NavSource Transport (APA), Amphibious Transport (LPA) Index or the now miserable to navigate DANFS and Custer. In either you will see the AP designation was just until refit to turn a transport into that special attack transport vessel that could carry lots of landing craft and was designed to unspool supplies smoothly and in order of need in a hot landing. You will see from Colton's list APAs down to Sea Scamp which was not Navy. For details, MARAD Vessel History Database is often very revealing. For that APA Sea Eagle the cards show build and nothing until U.S.M.C. gets the ship from Navy 11 September 1946. But for Sea Scamp that vessel was delivered from Ingalls to WSA which owned the hull and operated by Lykes under that GAA. Grover shows on page 19 that vessel was also Army by allocation. One of yours, Sea Cat where Colton's Western Pipe & Steel Co., South San Francisco CA and San Pedro CA has not much about wartime, but look at the VSC. Delivered 25 August 1943 at noon Pacific War Time in San Francisco, WSA owned the vessel and at that very delivery time WSA "delivered" the ship to War Department on a BB (bareboat), operating under such until 30 September 1946 at 11:40 a.m. when the ship entered the reserve fleet in Suisun Bay. Who operated Sea Cat was purely up to Army, probably an agent such as WSA agents but perhaps Army civilian mariners. WSA had turned that ship over for crew, maintenance, paint jobs, fuel—whatever. There may even have been a "United States Army Transport" above Sea Cat, but maybe not. Paint was in short supply. Now a real Army example, Ingalls list to American Farmer/Gulfport that you have to look under David C. Shanks to see War Department, purchase, 24 April 1943. There are other on line sources, but these are staples.

Do be aware there is a lot of very erroneous information in those unit histories and web sites—for ship particulars they are often unreliable sources and sometimes contain head shaking howlers, such as Bloemfontein being "a converted Dutch icebreaker" (she had a Maierform bow as can be seen here in the photo of the second ship of the name). Soldiers making two big trips with maybe some miserable and scary ones in between usually knew very little about ships including the ship into which they were packed and often thought anything that floated was Navy anyway. Palmeira (talk) 06:08, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Revision

Revision with elimination of many cites not "reliable" by Wikipedia standards (personal accounts, blogs, etc.) and replacement with reliable sources. Reword and elimination of a long list of mostly trivial repair and maintenance data from S.S. Steel Director from Isthmian Lines.

The trivia removed to here in case some is less trivial:

• During the period of October to December 1950 heavy weather damaged the rudder, boats and fitting. These repairs were made in Houston TX. • 7/11/50: On voyage Galveston, Texas, to Haifa, Israel, hit pier at Gulfport, MS with damage to propeller blades and shaft. • 10-12/50: Heavy weather damage to rudder, boats and fittings; repaired at Houston, TX. • 4/20 - 4/21/51: Heavy weather destroyed accommodation ladder on voyage Calcutta, India to Boston, MA. • 8/2 - 8/3/51: Heavy weather damaged lifeboats. Repair #2 lifeboat davit arm, 7 hatch tarps and 4 lifeboat covers; repairs at Baltimore MD. • 8/20/52: On voyage Houston, TX to Calcutta, India hit Congress Street Wharf, New Orleans, LA, damaging 6 pilings. • 2/1/55: Hit submerged object damaging propeller. 7/12/55: Dry-docked in New York, NY for initial repairs with further work completed in Galveston, Texas, in October 1955. • 8/9/57: While on voyage from Baltimore and Saigon, South Vietnam to Bangkok, Thailand struck a submerged obstruction. Again on 12/1/57 during voyage from Baltimore MD and Philippines to Surabaya, Indonesia and Singapore, propeller struck submerged object. All repairs done in Galveston, Texas, in March 1958. • 5/18/58: Struck submerged object on passage from Mobile, AL to New Orleans, LA. Repairs completed in Baltimore, MD in April 1959. • 12/24/59: At Chittagong, India collided with steamer Pyidawnyunt, with little or no damage and arrived in Calcutta, India on 12/27/59. • 10/27/60: Grounded in the Houston Ship Channel while en route to Galveston, Texas. Repairs deferred until August 1961. • 1/25/61: Suffered rudder damage from grounding in Suez Canal on voyage from Calcutta, India to Houston, TX. Towed to Port Said, Egypt by tug where temporary repairs were done. Towed by salvage ship Svitzer to Palermo, Italy where permanent repairs were made. • 7/14/61: Struck the lock wall of Cote Ste. Catherine Lock while transiting the St. Lawrence Seaway en route from Montreal, QB to Kenosha, WS in ballast. Struck lock wall of Lower and Upper Beauharnois Locks while transiting the St. Lawrence Seaway. • Arrived Baltimore, MD 9/6/61 from New York, NY for deferred repairs to bottom plates damage sustained 10/27/60 plus damage sustained in St Lawrence Seaway. • 9/10/63: generator turbine damaged in consequence of alleged engineer's negligence while the vessel was on passage from Madras, India to Calcutta, India. Partial repairs made in New York in December 1963. • 6/7/68: Struck submerged object in Pascagoula, Mississippi River while en route from Baton Rouge, LA to Houston, TX and Calcutta, India. Repairs completed in New York, NY July 2, 1968. • 3/5 - 8/69: Damaged in heavy weather while en route from Porto Grande, Cape Verde Islands. to New York, NY and New Orleans, LA. Partial repair completed August 5, 1969 in New York, NY. • 1/7/70: Grounded with no reported damage. • 6/23/70: Collided with barge in Yokohama, Japan on voyage from Saigon, South Vietnam for Seattle, WA. Damage to propeller repaired at Todd Shipyards in Seattle, WA in August.. • 9/9/70: Arrived Sattahip, Thailand from Tacoma, WA with refrigeration failure following repairs proceeded to Qui Nhon, South Vietnam.

Work is still needed and the "units transported" is largely based on sources not considered reliable here. Palmeira (talk) 16:13, 21 August 2021 (UTC)