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The cruise ship SS Washington, was acquired by the Navy (along with
two others) in early summer of 1941, in San Francisco, CA, and
renamed the USS Mount Vernon. She was then sailed by a merchant crew
(with Naval Reserve units on board learning her operations), though
the Panama Canal to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she was
refitted, and commissioned on June 16, 1941. |
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The USS Mount Vernon (AP-22)(built in 1932 at New York Shipbuilding
Co., Camden, NY, 705' long, at 24,289 tons, as a cabin cruise ship),
would, after sea trials, head for Halifax, Nova Scotia. On 10
November, 1941, the USS Mount Vernon, would embark on a highly
secret mission (the US was still a neutral country), that would end
in Singapore harbor just 2 days before being overrun by the
advancing Japanese troops. (She disembarked some 5,000 British
Officers and men of the British 18th Territorials, being brought in
to defend Singapore,as her part of Convoy TF-14.3. More than 15,000
British troops were in other transports of TF 14.3. Over 7,000 of
these men would die as Japanese prisoners of war). A string of bombs
would strike her dock exactly parallel to the ship, just a few
hundred feet away, before she managed to leave a while later, after
heavy fog rolled into Singapore harbor, shielding the escaping TF
14.3 convoy from further aerial bombardment. |
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| [Digital
imaging: Roland Burgan] |
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