1931: A Record-Breaking Ocean Liner is Launched in the Garden State

December 5, 1931

The luxury ocean liner SS Manhattan, which had been built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, was launched in Camden, New Jersey. Former First Lady Edith Roosevelt (1861-1948), widow of President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), christened the ship with a bottle containing water taken from various streams throughout the country. 

This United States Lines vessel, weighing 24,189 tons (21,943.9 metric tons) and measuring 705 feet (214.9 meters) in overall length with a total of seven decks, was the biggest ship of its kind to be built in the United States up to that time. Starting in 1932, the Manhattan operated throughout most of that decade on the route between New York City and the German city of Hamburg via Cobh, Ireland; Southampton, England; and Le Havre, France. 

It was the Manhattan that carried the U.S. Olympic team to Germany for the 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin. When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, the Manhattan’s New York City-Hamburg route came to an end due to a newly enacted American ban on ships traveling to Germany. The Manhattan subsequently served on a route between New York City and the Italian city of Genoa. This route was terminated in 1940 after Italy entered World War II on Germany’s side.  

With the war in Europe endangering the ships of the still-neutral United States, the Manhattan was placed in service between New York City and California via the Panama Canal. In mid-1941 — just a few months before the United States officially entered World War II on the side of the Allies — the Manhattan was requisitioned and leased by the U.S. Navy and ultimately commissioned as the troop transport ship USS Wakefield (AP-21). This ship was decommissioned in 1946, removed from the Navy Register altogether in 1959, and sold for scrap six years after that.

Image Credit: Public Domain

Additional information on SS Manhattan (ultimately commissioned as USS Wakefield [AP-21]) is available at https://www.navsource.net/archives/09/22/22021.htm

For more information on the 1931 launch of this ship, please check out https://archive.org/details/pacificmarinerev2932paci/page/n40/mode/1up?q=Manhattan