1945: The Launch of a U.S. Navy Transport Ship Named After a U.S. Army Officer

January 21, 1945

In the final year of World War II, a U.S. Navy transport ship was launched in a Sunday ceremony at a Kaiser Shipbuilding yard in Richmond, California. This ship was named after Andre Walker Brewster (1862-1942), a U.S. Army major general and Medal of Honor recipient. Walker’s noteworthy assignments during his long military career included serving as Inspector General of the U.S. Army and — during World War I — Inspector General of the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

USS General A.W. Brewster (AP-155), which was commissioned into the Navy about three months after her launch, was crewed by the U.S. Coast Guard during the remainder of World War II. Following the end of this global conflict, this vessel was used to help bring thousands of American servicemen back home from East Asia.

In 1946, the ship was transferred to the Army and redesignated USAT (U.S. Army Transport) General A.W. Brewster for duty in the Pacific region. She was was reacquired by the Navy in 1950 and subsequently assigned to that military branch’s Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS General A.W. Brewster (T-AP-155). Over the next three years, this vessel was used by her civilian crew to transport more than 67,000 troops to and from Japan and Korea.

In 1954, USNS General A.W. Brewster took part in Operation Passage to Freedom in Southeast Asia. This large-scale effort involved ships transporting thousands of refugees from communist North Vietnam to South Vietnam. The following year, the General A.W. Brewster was returned to the U.S. Maritime Administration and then placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

The vessel was sold for commercial service in 1968 and rebuilt by Bethlehem Steel Corporation in Baltimore as the container ship SS Philadelphia. She was sold for scrapping in Taiwan in 1987. This ship’s anchor can be viewed at Freedom Park on the bank of the Missouri River in Omaha.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on the ship originally known as USS A.W. Brewster (AP-155), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_General_A._W._Brewster