The tales of 7 Mississippi Coast-named warships
War makes ships.
Ships make war.
And sometimes, local communities get to see their names on those warships.
At least seven have carried the names of Mississippi Gulf Coast towns: Two USS Gulfports, one USS Pass Christian, three USS Pascagoulas and one USS Biloxi.
Other local names may have slipped through the cracks of modern history searches. Definitely, research is made more difficult because the names were changed on three of those ships.
Furthering confusing the story is the fact that early construction that links several of them to Ingalls Shipbuilding on the Coast is often ignored. Also, some history sites (among them a Mississippi university) mistakenly claim the USS Biloxi is the only warship to carry a Coast name.
At least seven had Coast town names at some point.
Sadly, all are now in Davy Jones Locker, most sold for scrap or scuttled after war was done. We should remember them this long Fourth of July Weekend for their roles in allowing us to continue celebrating our independence.
The First USS Gulfport
The first ship with the USS Gulfport name began life as a German commercial freighter built in 1902 in Bremerhaven and named Andree Rickmers, but changed four years later to the Locksun. In August 1914 when Germany entered World War I The Locksun was pressed into duty as a collier for a small German cruiser named Geier.
Together the two limped into Honolulu in October 1914, suspiciously in unseaworthy condition. Both were “interned” in Honolulu, then a territory for neutral U.S., where they were expected to stay though the war.
In February 1917 with U.S. entry into WWI eminent, the German crews attempted to burn the Locksun and Geier and other interned ships so they could not be seized by America. Over 100 ships were badly damaged in the ploy ordered by the German high command.
But this headline tells it all: “How American Ingenuity Restored 109 Badly Damaged Interned Ships: Kaiser’s Men said it Could Not Be done – U.S. Engineers Did It in Eight Months.” The repaired ships, including the Locksun now renamed USS Gulfport, next served American war duty.
The Gulfport escorted submarines and carried cargo and passengers between the Caribbean and East Coast. She was decommissioned in March 1922, sold four months later to become the merchantman Commercial Scout. Two years later she was renamed Lok Sun. Wrecked near Hong Kong in 1929, she was later scrapped.
The Second USS Gulfport
As the USS Gulfport, PF 20, slipped down the ways of Ingalls Shipbuilding on Oct. 21, 1942, Sen. James O. Eastland told those gathered, “We are facing the strongest and best equipped foe ever faced by any people. Free men everywhere are dependent for victory upon the industries, the shipyards and the farms of America.”
An Ingalls’ wife christened the ship with champagne. Ten months later, during a second ceremony in Ohio and another trip down the ways, the christening was done by the widow of a Navy pilot and Gulfport native whose airplane had crashed in Pensacola. To learn why there was a rare double trip down the ways in two different states, read last Sunday’s Coast Chronicle.
The Gulfport was commissioned September 1944, as one of the new Tacoma-class frigates constructed under the all-welded technique innovated by Robert Ingersoll Ingalls Sr. A convoy escort until VE Day, she was then given weather duties described as “so singularly important in the movements of both ships and aircraft in the Pacific.
Decommissioned in May 1946 the Gulfport was sold for scrap in November 1947.
Three USS Pascagoulas
Apparently, three Pascagoulas sailed.
The first one, wooden hull No. 283, was in response to U.S. entry into World War I, built at the Dierks-Blodgett Shipbuilding Co. of New Orleans, launched May 1918 and commissioned five months later. She was decommissioned within two months later, then scrapped in 1923.
The second Pascagoula was launched at Ingalls in January 1942, a month after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The WWII troop transport carried nearly 2,000 and was christened the USS Pascagoula. When acquired by the Army in September 1942 she was renamed USNS George W. Goethals, for the builder of the Panama Canal.
After WWII Goethals continued transatlantic runs carrying military dependents, some of them European war brides. Then in 1950 she was acquired by the Navy and continued troop lift and passenger voyages until 1959 when deactivated. She briefly served in the National Defense Reserve Fleet before being scrapped in 1971.
The third Pascagoula was created as Patrol Craft Escort 874, laid down in a Portland Shipyard in 1943 and commissioned December. At the end of WWII, 874 was placed in service as a Naval Reserve training ship.
The Pascagoula name was not added until February 1956, the reason elusive. In 1960 the Pascagoula was loaned then sold to Ecuador which renamed her BAE Manabi. She was struck from the Ecuadorian Navy in 1980, her fate unknown.
The USS Pass Christian
Ingalls named her the USS or SS Pass Christian (reports vary) when laid down and christened in 1943. Immediately after completion in Pascagoula she was transferred to the Army and renamed USS Fred C. Ainsworth, after a history-making Army surgeon and adjutant general.
The Ainsworth operated mostly in the Pacific as a troop transport, continuing that role through the 1950s, including the Korean War. Put into the fleet reserve, then struck from the Naval Register, she was sold for scrap. The buyer defaulted on the 1973 deal and she was sold for storage to Inter-Ocean Grain Storage Ltd., but her fate is unknown.
The USS Biloxi
The USS Biloxi is the most storied of the warships carrying Coast names. She received nine battle stars, with her first invasion involving the Marshall Islands. Her hull was laid in July 1941, before U.S. entry into World War II.
Like the ship itself, I am out of time and space, and at a later date will delve into her history. Meanwhile, to see what remains of the warship, head to the Biloxi Small Craft Harbor and its Guice Park.
This story was originally published July 5, 2020 at 12:00 AM with the headline "The tales of 7 Mississippi Coast-named warships."