USS General C. C. Ballou

USAT General C. C. Ballou underway, circa in 1949
History
United States
Name	General C. C. Ballou
Namesake	Charles Clarendon Ballou
Builder	Kaiser Co., Inc. Richmond, California
Laid down	date unknown
Launched	7 March 1945
Acquired	20 May 1945
Commissioned	30 June 1945
Decommissioned	17 May 1946
In service	after May 1946 (Army) 1 March 1950 (MSTS)
Out of service	1 March 1950 (Army) September 1954 (MSTS)
Renamed	Brooklyn, 1969 Humacao, 1975 Eastern Light, 1981
Reclassified	T-AP-157, 1 March 1950
Stricken	1 July 1960
Identification	IMO number: 6903149
Fate	Scrapped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan[1]
General characteristics
Class and type	General G. O. Squier-class transport ship
Displacement	9,950 tons (light), 17,250 tons (full)
Length	522 ft 10 in (159.36 m)
Beam	71 ft 6 in (21.79 m)
Draft	24 ft (7.32 m)
Propulsion	single-screw steam turbine with 9,900 shp (7,400 kW)
Speed	17 knots (31 km/h)
Capacity	3,823 troops
Complement	356 (officers and enlisted)
Armament	4 × 5"/38 caliber gun mounts 4 × 40 mm AA gun mounts 16 × 20 mm AA gun mounts

USS General C. C. Ballou (AP-157) was a General G. O. Squier-class transport ship for the U.S. Navy in World War II. She was named in honor of U.S. Army general Charles Clarendon Ballou. She was transferred to the U.S. Army as USAT General C. C. Ballou in 1946. On 1 March 1950, she was transferred to the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) as USNS General C. C. Ballou (T-AP-157). She was later sold for commercial operation under several names before being scrapped some time after 1981.^[1]

Operational history

General C. C. Ballou, (AP-157) was launched 7 March 1945 under Maritime Commission contract (MC #714) by Kaiser Co., Inc., Yard 3, Richmond, California; sponsored by Mrs. Harry J. Bernat; acquired by the Navy 20 May 1945; and commissioned 30 June 1945.

Following shakedown off San Diego, General C. C. Ballou departed San Pedro 29 July 1945 for France via the Panama Canal. She arrived Marseilles after the Japanese surrender, and sailed with returning veterans 23 August bound for Hampton Roads. Then after two round-trip voyages to India and back to New York with returning soldiers and sailors, the ship sailed 13 January 1946 for a voyage that was to take her around the world visiting Calcutta, Manila, and other ports before mooring at San Francisco 8 March with over 3,000 troops. General C. C. Ballou completed her voyage by transiting the Panama Canal, arriving New York via San Juan, Puerto Rico 1 May. The transport decommissioned at Hoboken, New Jersey, 17 May, was returned to the Maritime Commission, and eventually served as a transport for Army Transportation Service.

On 5 April 1949, USAT General C. C. Ballou departed Naples with 859 displaced persons from Europe for resettlement in Australia arriving 29 April 1949 at Melbourne.^[2] The General C. C. Ballou departed Europe and arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax on December 24, 1949, and thrice thereafter between 1950 and 1951.^[3] She completed another voyage to Sydney on 23 March 1950 with 1266 more refugees.^[4]

General C. C. Ballou was reacquired by the Navy 1 March 1950 for MSTS and for nearly 2 years sailed between Europe and the United States with refugees. Beginning in 1952, the ship began transporting troops from the West Coast to Korea to serve in the Korean War. Following the armistice, General C. C. Ballou continued to sail to Japan and Korea on troop rotation duty. She was placed out of service in September 1954 and placed in reserve at Orange, Texas. Later delivered to the Maritime Commission National Defense Reserve Fleet at Beaumont, Texas, she was struck from the Navy List 1 July 1960, and remained in reserve until sold for commercial use under the MARAD Ship Exchange Program in 1968^[5] to Sea-Land Service, Inc. of Wilmington, Delaware.^[1]

The ship was rebuilt as an 11,369 gross ton container ship by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation Ship Repair Yard in Hoboken, New Jersey after being gutted by the Alabama Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. and renamed SS Brooklyn, USCG ON 513557, IMO 6903149. In 1975 the ship was sold to Navieras de Puerto Rico, also known as the Puerto Rico Maritime Shipping Authority and renamed SS Humacao. Eastern Star Maritime Ltd. of Panama renamed her Eastern Light when it purchased her in 1981. Eastern Light left Kobe, Japan on 24 December 1981 to steam to Kaohsiung, Taiwan where she was scrapped.^[1][6][7]

General C. C. Ballou received five battle stars for Korean War service.

References

Sources

• Cudahy, Brian J. (2006). Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2569-9.
• Williams, Greg H. (2013). World War II U.S. Navy Vessels in Private Hands. McFarland Books. ISBN 978-0-7864-6645-0.
• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links

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