Thread by @TrentTelenko

@mercoglianos Sal,
Ammo ships were specialized vessels.

And who "owned" shipping tonnage & ocean going vessels in WW2 is one of those not really looked at hard beyond institutional histories subjects.

The War Dept. used the War Shipping Administration as a beard for "their hulls."

@mercoglianos The War Department pre-war Army Transport Service (ATS) vessels were, under a 1941 reorganization, integrated into the Water Division of the US Army Transportation Corps. The Water Division operated a lot of coastal shipping crewed by the Coast Guard or foreign ships, only some

@mercoglianos of which were War Shipping Administration hulls.

MacArthur's SWPA was primarily operating with the British Admiralty and the Dutch to get hulls up to late 1943/Early 1944.

@mercoglianos I wrote about some of the craziness 'outside the institutional naval narrative' SWPA shipping stuff here:

History Friday: MacArthur’s Mission X
chicagoboyz.net/archives/37265…

@mercoglianos Operation Downfall -- the planned invasion of Japan --saw merchant shipping being organized by service.

This blew the US Navy's mind in the summer of 1945 but the War Department made it stick. This service split went down to which US ports of embarkation were Army or Navy.

@mercoglianos So saying a vessel was "War Shippin Administration operated" did not mean it wasn't a War Department/Army hull.

@mercoglianos And yes, the US Navy SOPA's treated WSA hulls operating as specialized War Department ammo ships with merchant crews and naval armed guards very differently than the specialized AKE navy ammo ships with USN captains & crews.

Army ammo ships were placed outside anchorages.

@mercoglianos AKE with the same tonnage of naval ammo were well protected inside anchorages.

@mercoglianos Sal,

If you are interested in the subject of WW2 shipping to the SWPA. I have links to a couple of unpublished monographs you can consult.

First:

Information pertaining to SWPA regulating system.
cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec…

@mercoglianos Second:

Water transportation- U.S. Army, 1939-1942, ASF.
cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec…

@mercoglianos Third:

Army's Cargo Fleet in WWII
cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collec…

@mercoglianos These are some of the small ships used in the SWPA for coastal shipping.

@mercoglianos And finally:

U.S. Army Transportation in the Southwest Pacific Area, 1941-47
scribd.com/document/15837…

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