The tremendous expansion in the use of electronics systems on U.S. Navy ships during the course of World War II had by early 1944 left the Fleet with inadequate afloat electronics repair and spares resources. With the losses of merchant cargo ships beginning to abate in 1943, construction of mass-produced EC-2-S-1 “Liberty Ship” merchant hulls in full swing, and the new and superior VC-2–series cargo ships beginning to enter production, the U.S. Maritime Commission was able to allocate increasing numbers of Liberty Ship hulls to the Navy, which used some of them as cargo ships with little modification and adapted others for specialized repair and cargo-transporting duties. As the war in the Pacific was expected to last well into the late 1940s, the Navy acquired ten Liberty hulls under construction at East Coast shipyards for conversion into combination electronics-repair, electronics-stores, repair-personnel barracks, provision-carrying, and fresh-water distillation ships under the classification AG—miscellaneous auxiliary. They were assigned hull numbers AG-68 through AG-71 and AG-73 through AG-78 (AG-72 was assigned to an antisubmarine escort completed as a personnel ferry, the Parris Island, ex-PCE-901).
The ten Liberty-hull AGs were not a uniform group, however. The class-nameship, the USS Basilan (AG-68), had been launched on 21 March 1944 by Delta Shipbuilding, New Orleans, as the merchant cargo ship Jacques Phillipe Villere and had originally been intended to be converted to a Luzon-class internal-combustion engine repair ship as ARG-12; the same is true of the Burias (AG-69), launched by Delta six days later as the merchant hull Mollie Moore Davis and initially to have been converted as ARG-13. The next two ships in the series, the Zaniah (AG-70) and Baham (AG-71) had been launched in December 1943 and assigned the merchant ship names Anthony F. Lucas and Elizabeth C. Bellamy, respectively, by the Maritime Commission; they were initially classified by the Navy as cargo ships AK-120 and AK-122 but never operated in that capacity. The final six, all launched from October 1944 to January 1945, never had merchant names assigned and became the Belle Isle (AG-73), Coasters Harbor (AG-74), Cuttyhunk Island (AG-75), Avery Island (AG-76), Indian Island (AG-77), and Kent Island (AG-78).1 Placed in “reduced commission” right after being launched, all ten went directly from their builders’ yards to other East Coast facilities for conversion as Navy auxiliaries.
The first four, all reclassified AG on 14 March 1944, were not uniformly equipped, while the final six were essentially identical and featured funnel caps, a telescoping lattice cargo derrick stepped to the forward kingpost to facilitate removal and installation of various antennas from ships alongside, and a “radar platform” with various antennas to test electronics components during and after repairs. The Basilan, given further modifications at San Francisco in March 1945, also had the radar platform and antenna-handling derrick and uniquely carried an LCVP landing craft to starboard on skids above one of the four 40-foot utility boats allocated to each of the ships; the Basilan also had a deckhouse added directly above the original pilothouse.
The Burias, Zaniah, and Baham did not get the full conversion and had different arrangements for spare-parts stowage and repair-crew berthing. The Zaniah never did receive the three 250- or 350-kw diesel generators added to the other nine, and along with Burias and Baham retained two merchant marine 24-foot lifeboats while also having the two 26-foot motor whaleboats carried by the other seven. All ten had a deckhouse added on the main deck forward partially covering the former hold number two and a deckhouse aft of the original midships superstructure that completely covered hold number four. The ships carried crews of 13 or 14 officers and 165 enlisted personnel and also had varying numbers of berths for officers and enlisted repair crew. The Zaniah could accommodate a total of 925 personnel and the final six ships some 878, with the enlisted berthing and other related facilities on all of the class taking up nearly all of the first hull platform deck and much of the second platform fore and aft. In addition, the ships were re-equipped with a distilling capacity of 80,000 gallons per day (increased later in several ships) and tankage for 7,400 to 8,435 tons of fuel oil as ballast or for transfer to other ships.
The first four ships reached the western Pacific in time to provide their intended services. The Basilan operated at Ulithi Atoll and in the Caroline Islands during April and May of 1945 and then transferred to an anchorage off Leyte for the remainder of the war. The Burias was stationed at Saipan from March to October 1945, and the Baham arrived in the Caroline Islands in May 1945 and was also later stationed off Leyte and Eniwetok Atoll. The Zaniah was the only ship of the class to see combat and, arriving in the war zone in January 1945, later was awarded a Battle Star for her services while under Japanese aircraft attack at Okinawa, where her crew performed strenuous service in salvaging damaged and sunken craft. On 16 September 1945, the ship received damage during a typhoon when rammed by another Navy auxiliary that had gone adrift at Buckner Bay. AG-68, -69, and -71 were decommissioned during April 1946 and AG-70 in July; the four were stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 22 May 1947 and transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal.
The six later ships, not commissioned until July through September 1945, arrived in the western Pacific after the end of hostilities and served in Asian waters briefly during the post-war occupation period, except for the Cuttyhunk Island, which made one run to Bermuda to pick up Army personnel during November 1945 and saw no further use. The Coasters Harbor and Avery Island provided services to the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946, but by August 1947 all six had been placed in reserve. AG-73 through AG-78 were reclassified as general stores issue ships AKS-21 through AKS-26, respectively, on 14 August 1951 but remained in reserve without further alterations until they were stricken on 1 April 1960. Aside from the Belle Isle, which was sunk that year as a torpedo and gunnery target, they were all transferred to the Maritime Administration and soon sold for scrap.
Had not the Japanese capitulated after the atomic bomb blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ten versatile Basilan-class auxiliaries would have been very useful assets. As it was, their slow 12.5-knot maximum speed and antiquated equipment rendered them of little use to the postwar Navy.
1. The names for AG-68 and AG-69 were derived from the Pacific islands name source used for the Luzon-class ARGs; AG-70 and AG-71 were given U.S. Navy cargo ship star names; and the final six had a new name source: islands in continental U.S. waters.