- USS General J. R. Brooke (AP-132)
USS "General J. R. Brooke" (AP-132) was a sclass|General G. O. Squier|transport ship for the U.S. Navy in
World War II . She was named in honor of U.S. Army generalJohn Rutter Brooke . Decommissioned in 1946, she was sold privately in 1964 and renamed SS "Marymar", and was scrapped in 1979.Operational history
"General J. R. Brooke" was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract
29 June 1942 by the Kaiser Co., Inc., Yard 3,Richmond, California ; launched21 February 1943 ; sponsored by Mrs. Helen Thompson; acquired by the Navy10 December 1943 ; converted to a transport byMatson Navigation Co. , San Francisco; and commissioned20 January 1944 at San Francisco, Captain David L. Nutter in command.On her maiden voyage, "General J. R. Brooke" sailed from
Port Hueneme 24 February 1944 with more than 3,600 troops, mostlySeabees , forPearl Harbor and returned to San Francisco8 March . From19 March to23 April she made a round-trip voyage out of San Francisco to bring 3,600 men toNouméa andEspiritu Santo . Following her return, the ship sailed again12 May forNew Guinea to debark 3,400 troops atOro Bay , and steamed thence to New York, where she arrived3 July 1944 .Convoyed by ships and planes and under constant threat of submarine attack, "General J. R. Brooke" operated in the Atlantic throughout the remainder of the war. In her unflagging efforts to insure an even flow of men from the United States to the European Theater, she made 12 transatlantic voyages (8 from New York, 2 from Boston, and 2 from Norfolk) to the
United Kingdom (Plymouth ,Liverpool , andSouthampton );Italy (Naples );France (Cherbourg ,Marseille s, andLe Havre ); and North Africa (Oran ) from26 July 1944 to5 September 1945 . She brought to the European ports tens of thousands of American and Allied fighting men and thousands of tons of vital supplies; and she brought to the United States countless German prisoners of war (POWs).After the war's end, "General J. R. Brooke" made two "Magic-Carpet" and troop-rotation voyages from New York to Calcutta and
Ceylon via theSuez Canal from11 September 1945 to3 January 1946 . Subsequently, she made five identical troop-carrying voyages from New York to Le Havre between19 January and10 June 1946 . In May 1946 she transported over 2,700 German POW's back to France. "General J. R. Brooke" moored at Norfolk13 June and decommissioned at Newport News3 July 1946 . Returned to the WSA on18 July 1946 , she entered theNational Defense Reserve Fleet ,James River , Virginia.She was sold to Bethlehem Steel Corp. of
Wilmington, Delaware in April 1964 and renamed SS "Marymar". She was scrapped in 1979.References
*
External links
* [http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/22/22132.htm Photo gallery] of "General J. R. Brooke" at NavSource Naval History.
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