USS Gordonia, a 7435-ton (limiting displacement) Adria class store ship, was built at Beaumont, Texas, as a Maritime Commission R1-M-AV3 type refrigerator ship. Acquired by the Navy upon completion, she was commissioned in mid-May 1945 and soon went to the Pacific with a cargo of provisions. She arrived at Pearl Harbor at the beginning of July, then voyaged onward to Okinawa, where she arrived just as World War II ended. Gordonia made three more trips to the western Pacific, Korea and China, between September 1945 and June 1946. She was decommissioned in early July 1946 and returned to the Maritime Commission at that time. Renamed Whale Knot, she was operated commercially by the Matson Navigation Company during 1946-1948, then served as a U.S. Army vessel until early 1949. Laid up thereafter at Suisun Bay, California, she was sold for scrapping in November 1973.
This page features the only view we have concerning USS Gordonia (AF-43).
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 8 April 2005