USS Aries, a 1881 ton (light) displacement freighter, was completed at Duluth, Minnesota, in August 1918 as S.S. Lake Geneva. She served as USS Lake Geneva (ID # 4215-B) from September 1918 to July 1919, carrying coal from the United Kingdom to France, then reverted to merchant service and operated on the Great Lakes as S.S. John J. O'Hagan from 1925 to 1941.
One of five World War I "Laker" type cargo ships acquired in September 1941 for use as Coast Guard weather patrol ships, John J. O'Hagan became USS Manomet (AG-37). In December 1941 the Navy's Auxiliary Vessels Board noted that, because of changes in the locations of weather patrol stations, the Coast Guard needed only three of the five "Lakers" for that purpose. The other two, AG-37 and AG-38 (USS Matinicus), were ordered converted to cargo ships (AK 51 and AK-52) for the Naval Transportation Service and were renamed Aries and Gemini. Aries completed conversion to a cargo ship -- including installation of two pairs of kingposts to handle cargo -- at East Boston, Massachusetts, in May 1942, while Gemini was further converted to a transport and redesignated AP-75 in August 1942.
Initially operated by a civilian crew as a "U. S. Naval Cargo Ship", in July 1942 Aries was placed in full commission with a Navy crew. In that month Aries sailed from New York for Iceland, and for the next year carried Army cargo between Icelandic ports. After shipyard repairs she departed Boston in December 1943 for the Pacific. Her troublesome main engine was replaced at the Mare Island, California, Navy Yard between April and September 1944, and she only arrived in the South Pacific in October. Aries then operated between Manus, Ulithi, Guam, and the Philippines through the end of the Second World War. In November 1945 she steamed into Tokyo Bay with a cargo of supplies for occupation forces. The ship returned to San Francisco in December 1945 and was decommissioned in March 1946, stricken from the Navy List in April, transferred to the Maritime Commission in July, and sold for operation as the bulk carrier Adelanto in May 1947. She was scrapped at Hong Kong in 1952.
This page features the only views we have concerning Aries (AK-51), which was previously USS Lake Geneva (ID # 4215-B) and USS Manomet (AG-37); and the civilian S.S. Lake Geneva, John J. O'Hagan and Adelanto.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 29 April 2008