Clarence B. Tegeder
North Shore
& Other Photos
Ships
and Men of the Army Transport Service (ATS)
by Charles Dana Gibson
With the beginning of World War II, the fleet was again expanded.
In 1942, the Army Transport Service was absorbed into the Army's
Transportation Corps, becoming part of the Water Division, its
civilian seamen employees being classified as members of the Water
Division's "Civilian Branch."
At peak force during WWII, the Army's owned and bareboat chartered
fleet have been enumerated as follows:
Self Propelled Vessels Over 1,000 gross tons and over 200 feet
LOA:
35 large troop transports
16 cargo
55 inter-island
2 cable laying
1 news and communication
36 floating, self-propelled warehouse, repair, spare parts, and
miscellaneous
23 hospital
With but few exceptions, the large tonnage ships were manned by
civilian seamen of the Water Division. Of the large tonnage fleet, 31
vessels were lost to either enemy action or marine casualty.
LIBERTY SHIPS IN WWII
During the early years of World War II, enemy mine fields, aerial
assaults, and U-Boat attacks seriously crippled the Allied cause by
sinking huge numbers of merchant ships carrying equipment, supplies,
and troops. In order to build ships faster than the enemy could sink
them, President Franklin D. Roosevelt organized an unprecedented
emergency shipbuilding program. Between 1941 and 1945 more than 2,700
Liberty ships were produced -- "the cargo carrying key to
victory." By the time the program ended in 1945, eighteen
shipyards on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf participated in the
effort.
Two-thirds of all the cargo that left the United States during the
war was transported in Liberty ships. Two hundred of the vessels were
sunk, but there were so many at sea that the enemy could not close sea
lanes and crucial supply routes.
Mines and Degaussing
Hundreds of ships were sunk or badly damaged from mines planted by
planes, minelayers, and submarines in the North Sea, English Channel,
and Mediterranean Sea. German submarines also laid mines in the
Delaware River, Chesapeake Bay, Boston, Charleston, Jacksonville and
New York harbors. The Germans counted on the submarine to win the war
at sea, with the mine an important "assist."
The Japanese heavily mined the waters of their homeland and their
conquered territories throughout Asia. These mines did not distinguish
between ships, nor did they recognize V-E or V-J Day as the end of
war.
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