The SS ''Clovis Victory'' was the thirty-second

Victory ship The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by North American shipyards during World War II to replace losses caused by German submarines. They were a more modern design compared to the earlier Liberty ship, were slig ...

built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, in 156 days under the

Emergency Shipbuilding program The Emergency Shipbuilding Program (late 1940 – September 1945) was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S. Maritime ...

. She was launched by the California Shipbuilding Company on June 13, 1944 and completed on August 31, 1944. The ship's

United States Maritime Commission The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 195 ...

designation was VC2- S- AP3, hull number 27, operated by

Seas Shipping Company Seas Shipping Company, owner of the Robin Line was founded in 1920 in New York City, New York. The Robin Line named all its ships starting with the word ''Robin''. Robin Line was intercoastal fleet started as the predecessor of the Farrell Lines ...

. SS ''Clovis Victory'' served in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

. Victory ships were designed to replace the earlier

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost constr ...

s. Liberty ships were designed to be used just for WW2. Victory ships were designed to last longer and serve the US Navy after the war. The Victory ship differed from a Liberty ship in that they were: faster, longer and wider, taller, had a thinner stack set farther toward the

superstructure A superstructure is an upward extension of an existing structure above a baseline. This term is applied to various kinds of physical structures such as buildings, bridges, or ships. Aboard ships and large boats On water craft, the superstruct ...

, and had a long raised

forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase " b ...

. The sponsor of the ''Clovis Victory'' was the wife of the 200th Coast Artillery's Henry Max Miller of Clovis, New Mexico. Major Miller was lost in the sinking of the

SS Shinyō Maru ''Shin'yō Maru'' was a cargo steamship that was built in 1894, had a fifty-year career under successive British, Australian, Chinese and Greek owners, was captured by Japan in the Second World War, and sunk by a United States Navy submarine i ...

on September 7, 1944.

World War II

During World War II the ''Clovis Victory'' was a cargo supply ship. In February 1945 ''Clovis Victory'' was a back-up ship for the

Battle of Iwo Jima The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major battle in which the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and United States Navy (USN) landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army ( ...

. She was not called to go to

Iwo Jima Iwo Jima (, also ), known in Japan as , is one of the Japanese Volcano Islands and lies south of the Bonin Islands. Together with other islands, they form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The highest point of Iwo Jima is Mount Suribachi at high. ...

. Next she steamed to

Saipan Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. According to 2020 est ...

. The Navy required the ''Clovis Victory'' cargo at

Okinawa is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi). Naha is the capital and largest city ...

, so four destroyers escorted her there, where she was anchored for the month of April 1945 off the coast. The ''Clovis Victory'' supplied goods for the

Battle of Okinawa The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...

in April 1945; the battle took about two months. One of the roles of the SS ''Clovis Victory'' was to supply

smoke screen A smoke screen is smoke released to mask the movement or location of military units such as infantry, tanks, aircraft, or ships. Smoke screens are commonly deployed either by a canister (such as a grenade) or generated by a vehicle (such as a ...

fog oil in 55-gallon drums to protect the Navy ship harboring during the Battle for Okinawa. This helped to limit the

Kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to ...

planes attacks. ''Clovis Victory'' deck guns also destroyed two enemy planes and helped bring down three others. ''Clovis Victory'' survived 60 kamikaze air raids at Okinawa. After the battle she safely returning to San Francisco on August 30, 1946. Near the ''Clovis Victory'' at Okinawa was the ''

SS Hobbs Victory SS ''Hobbs Victory'' was a cargo Victory ship built for World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding program. ''Hobbs Victory'', was launched on January 9, 1945 by Permanente Metals Corporation, Richmond, California and completed on January ...

'', on April 6, 1945, the ''Hobbs Victory'' was hit by a kamikaze plane. ''Hobbs Victory'' worked to put out the flames, but a few hours later she exploded as she had 6,000 tons of

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...

in her hold. ''Clovis Victory'' also spent time at the

Enewetak Atoll Enewetak Atoll (; also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; mh, Ānewetak, , or , ; known to the Japanese as Brown Atoll or Brown Island; ja, ブラウン環礁) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with it ...

and

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the islan ...

. On September 20, 1946, she arrived at

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital city, capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is Cities of the Philippines#Independent cities, highly urbanize ...

with food from San Francisco. After the war, in 1948, she was laid up in the

National Defense Reserve Fleet The National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) consists of ships of the United States of America, mostly merchant vessels, that have been "mothballed" but can be activated within 20 to 120 days to provide shipping during national military emergencies ...

Suisun Bay Suisun Bay ( ; Wintun for "where the west wind blows") is a shallow tidal estuary (a northeastern extension of the San Francisco Bay) in Northern California. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, forming the ...

, part of the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, California, San Jose, and Oakland, Ca ...

, and later moved to

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. Europea ...

Korean War

From 1950 to 1953 she served in the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top: ...

, earning the Korean Service Medal and the United Nations Service Medal. She arrived in San Francisco on September 1, 1952, form Korea. In 1957 and 1958 she was managed for the

U.S. Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

. In 1972 she was scrapped in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

Honors

Crew of Naval Armed Guard on the SS ''Clovis Victory'' earned

Battle Stars A service star is a miniature bronze or silver five-pointed star inch (4.8 mm) in diameter that is authorized to be worn by members of the eight uniformed services of the United States on medals and ribbons to denote an additional award or ser ...

in World War II for war action during the assault of Okinawa from 19 May to 14 June 1945.usmm.org, "Battle Stars" in World War II.
/ref>

References

Sources

*Sawyer, L.A. and W.H. Mitchell. ''Victory ships and tankers: The history of the ‘Victory’ type cargo ships and of the tankers built in the United States of America during World War II'', Cornell Maritime Press, 1974, 0-87033-182-5. *United States Maritime Commission

*Victory Cargo Ship

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clovis Victory, SS Victory ships Ships built in Los Angeles United States Merchant Marine 1944 ships World War II merchant ships of the United States Cargo liners