The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

The USS Caswell (AKA-73)-- Part 2

The ship was sent to the Pacific where the crew received training.  It participated in the initial landings at Okinawa.  The movie "Mr. Roberts" was filmed on a fishing boat, but was based on a story that took place on the attack cargo ship USS Virgo (AKA-20).

After the war, the Caswell went to Norfolk, Va., where it was decommissioned 19 June 1946.  Two days later, it was returned to the US Maritime Commission which sold it the following year to the South Atlantic SS Line and it was renamed the SS Southwind.  There is some evidence that the ship participated in the Korean War.  In 1955, it was sold to the United States Line and renamed the SS American Surveyor and was involved in the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In 1963, it joined the James River Ghost Fleet and in 1973 was sold to Northern Metal Company and scrapped in 1974.

Quite a History for One Ship.  --GreGen

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