1945: The Launch of a Liberty Ship that Subsequently Became Entwined in an Amazing Twist of Wartime Fate

June 8, 1945

With World War II still underway in the Pacific Theater, the ship Francis J. O’Gara was launched at the shipyard of J.A. Jones Construction Company in Panama City, Florida. This vessel was one of more than 2,700 Liberty ships built in the United States during the war. These standardized cargo vessels were constructed under the federal government’s Emergency Shipbuilding Program.

The accompanying photo of the Francis J. O’Gara was taken on the same day as her launch. The Pensacola News Journal reported, “J.A. Jones Construction Company today launched its 97^th ship, the Francis J. O’ Gara, an airplane transport cargo vessel name in honor of a former Philadelphia Inquirer sports writer who lost his life when the steamer Jean Nicolet was torpedoed in the Indian Ocean July 2 1944.” 

O’Gara was born in the town of Millville, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1912. Not long after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, O’Gara left his job as a sports reporter to take part in the war effort as a seaman in the Merchant Marines (a longtime organization consisting of non-military mariners who serve on board both civilian and federally owned vessels).

After two years of service as a merchant mariner, O’ Gara began working instead for the emergency federal agency called the War Shipping Administration (WSA). While he was traveling on board SS Jean Nicolet to start a personnel job on behalf of WSA in India, that vessel was sunk by a Japanese submarine. O’Gara was among the dozens of Jean Nicolet passengers to be officially given up as dead in the wake of the submarine ambush.

Nearly a year later, members of O’Gara’s family played prominent roles in the launch of the Liberty ship named in his memory. His sister Mary Cecilia O’Gara served as the ship’s sponsor and their mother Margaret M. O’Gara was the co-sponsor. His father James F. O’Gara was also in attendance. A Jones Company employee named Peggy Saltsman was the “flower girl” for the event. By the end of the month, the Calmer Steamship Corporation began operating the Francis J. O’Gara on behalf of the federal government’s independent executive agency known as the U.S. Maritime Commission (MARCOM).

In an amazing twist of fate that few if any people could have even anticipated, it turned out that Francis J. O’Gara had in fact survived the torpedoing of Jean Nicolet. He was one of a handful of the steamship’s passengers to be brought on board the Japanese submarine responsible for the attack.  At around the time of Japan’s formal surrender to the Allies on September 2, 1945, O’ Gara – having endured constant starvation and brutal torture – was found alive in a prison camp near the Japanese city of Yokohama.

After returning to the United States that fall, O’Gara was reunited with his family and given a hero’s welcome in his hometown of Philadelphia. He also earned the against-all-odds distinction of being the only living person to have a Liberty ship named after them. O’Gara discussed the ship bearing his name in an interview appearing in a December 1945 edition of the North Carolina-based Sentinel. “I don’t know what will become of the ship,” O’Gara said. “But if it is put on inactive duty, I have already been promised the clock, the bell and the name plate as souvenirs.”

The Calmer Steamship Corporation continued to operate the ship until June 1946. During the period between January 1947 and January 1948, the Francis J. O’Gara was operated by the Waterman Steamship Company and then the South Atlantic Steamship Company. In 1948, this vessel was laid up in MARCOM’s reserve fleet based in Mobile, Alabama.

A new chapter opened for the Francis J. O’Gara in 1956, when the U.S. Navy acquired her for use as an ocean station radar ship. She was towed from Mobile to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to be outfitted with electronic detection equipment and communication apparatus. On February 6, 1957, she was commissioned as USS Outpost.

This ship remained in naval service until being decommissioned on July 1, 1965. She was returned to the U.S. Maritime Administration the following year and assigned to the Hudson River Reserve Fleet in New York. In 1971, the ship once known as the Francis J. O’Gara was sold for scrapping in Spain.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on the ship originally named the Francis J. O’Gara, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Outpost