World War II in the Pacific |
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Concrete Ships
- This passage in John Costello's "The Pacific War" (recommended) sparked some
memories.
- Thirteen barges (GSK), 350 foot, most were used as floating warehouses in the South Pacific.
- Forty-nine ships and lighters. Twenty-two oil barges (YO & YOG) 375 feet, 1944, for the Navy. Twenty-two covered lighters (BLC), 265 feet, used by Army as floating warehouses. Three lighters used as refrigerated warehouses. Two Army repair ships (FMS).
- A tank barge, 350 feet in 1943.
- Twenty-four ships 350 feet, 1944. Two convoyed material to Europe and then were sunk as breakwaters at Normandy. Several used as stevedore training ships, convoyed to Pacific and then sunk as breakwaters. Others sunk as breakwaters or used as storage hulls on US and Canadian coasts. Several pictures today.
- ICE CREAM SHIP. "The war's most unusual ship was commissioned in 1945 at a cost of around one million dollars. It was the US Navy's 'Ice Cream Barge' the world's first floating ice cream parlor. It's sole responsibility was to produce ice cream for US sailors in the Pacific region. The barge crew pumped out around 1,500 gallons every hour!" -- http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/
- See "I was there" story
and Corundum (IX-164) - Name that ship at Guam.
"The Service Force Pacific Fleet had been created under Vice Admiral William Calhoun, who had assembled an armada of transports, repair and supply vessels, and a collection of 300-foot concrete oil barges. He had established a floating navel base at Funafuti Lagoon in the Ellice Islands. Everything that the Fifth Fleet would need to sustain its 200 ships and 20,000 men, ..."
I remember seeing a concrete ship off the southern coast of New Jersey
as a kid. A wreck, an erosion barrier?
Now, the WW2 Pacific ships.
Sure enough, the Web does have a reference to the concrete oil barges:
Concrete Ship Constructors of National City with And also The
History about the Ferro-Concrete Ships
in Europe dating back to experiments with a rowboat in 1856.
Photos?
There is a List
of 100 Ferro-Concrete Ship Builders
including 17 in the USA. Most built yard-ships in the late WWI period,
but a couple were 400 foot tankers.
The following are of WW2 era.
A quick search of the internet found a site dated the same day of the
very concrete ship I remembered with her history and a photo. She dates
to the first war and is now broken; she was perfectly upright back when I saw her.
Photo is of GSK Quartz (later IX-150) taken by Vincent Cottrell, most likely in
Leyte 1944-45.
Post War : Powell River (B.C.) Hulks
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About this page: concship - Special Ships of World War II: concrete
and others as they occur.
Last updated on June 28, 2005 add I-was-there , IX-164.
5July'07 update url for pictures.
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URL: http://www.ww2pacific.com/concship.html
