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26-597: USNS Paoli (T-AO-157) was a Gettysburg -class fuel tanker, built at Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. in Chester, Pennsylvania . A Type T2–SE–A1 tanker , it was hull number 401 and Maritime Commission number 1734. The ship was laid down on 18 July 1944, launched on 31 October 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Lina Martin, and delivered to the Maritime Commission on 11 November 1944 for operation by War Emergency Tankers , New York City . Paoli made oil runs to

52-471: A Kennebec -class oiler. In 1966, the US Army reactivated 11 T2 tankers and converted them into floating electrical power generation plants and deployed them to Vietnam . The ships' propulsion systems' electrical turbines were used to generate electricity for on-shore use, drawing on fuel from the ships' 150,000-barrel holds. This allowed the ships to produce electricity for two years without refueling for

78-553: A ship built for merchant service which could be militarized as a fleet auxiliary in time of war. MarCom subsidized the excess cost of naval features beyond normal commercial standards. The T2 was based on two ships built in 1938–1939 by Bethlehem Steel for Socony-Vacuum Oil Company , Mobilfuel and Mobilube , differing from the Mobil ships principally in the installation of more powerful engines for higher speed. Standard T2s were 501 ft 6 in (152.9 m) in total length, with

104-475: A beam of 68 ft (20.7 m). Rated at 9,900 tons gross (GRT), with 15,850 long tons deadweight (DWT), standard T2s displaced about 21,100 tons. Steam turbines driving a single propeller at 12,000 horsepower (8,900  kW ) delivered a top speed of 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). Six were built for commerce by Bethlehem-Sparrows Point Shipyard in Maryland , only to be taken over by

130-1016: A top speed approaching 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph). All five were requisitioned by the Navy during the war and converted to fleet oilers as the Mattaponi class. By far the most common variety of the T2-type tanker was the T2-SE-A1, another commercial design already being built in 1940 by the Sun Shipbuilding Company for Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. They were 523 ft (159.4 m) long, 68 ft (20.7 m) abeam, with 10,448  gross register tons  (GRT) and 16,613  DWT . Their (steam) turbo-electric transmission system delivered 6,000 shaft horsepower (4,500 kW), with maximum thrust of 7,240 horsepower (5,400 kW), which produced

156-419: A top speed of 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph). The first Navy commissioning was in 1942. could hold 117,400 Bbls of oil and 595,000 gal of gasoline. Crew of 23 officers and 329 enlisted men. Armament: one single 5'/38 cal dual-purpose gun mount, four single 3"/50 cal dual-purpose gun mounts, four twin 40 mm AA gun mounts and twelve single 20 mm AA gun mounts. Example was USS  Patuxent ,

182-694: A top-rated speed of about 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) with a cruising range of up to 12,600 miles (20,300 km). After Pearl Harbor, the United States Maritime Commission ordered this model built en masse to supply U.S. warships already in accelerated production, and provide for the fuel needs of US forces in Europe and the Pacific, as well as to replace the tanker tonnage being lost at an alarming rate to German U-boats. 481 were built in extremely short production times by

208-802: The Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding Company of Mobile, Alabama , the Kaiser Company at their Swan Island Yard at Portland, Oregon , the Marinship Corp. of Sausalito, California , and the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Chester, Pennsylvania . During that period, average production time from laying of the keel to "fitting out" was 70 days. The record, however, was held by Marinship, which had Huntington Hills ready for sea trials in just 33 days. The T2-SE-A2 variation, built only by Marinship of Sausalito,

234-651: The United Kingdom , between the Caribbean and the east coast; and to the Persian Gulf during World War II. On 5 January 1946, the ship was transferred to Sieling & Jarvis of Newport News, Virginia , and then sold to Cities Service Oil Co., on 14 January 1947, for $ 1,797,871.78. The ship was returned to the Maritime Commission on 23 March 1955, at Beaumont, Texas , for lay up. Paoli

260-718: The United States Navy following the Attack on Pearl Harbor as the Kennebec -class oiler . Keystone Tankships company ordered five tankers in 1940 from Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock of Chester, Pennsylvania, based on the T2 but longer and with increased capacity; Marcom would designate this design T2-A. Bigger but faster, they were 526 ft (160.3 m) in total length, displaced about 22,445 tons, and were rated at 10,600 tons gross with 16,300  DWT — yet they attained

286-529: The 1970s, Sun built ten roll-on/roll-off (ro/ro) ships for various operators. One of them, sailing under the name SS El Faro , was lost in a hurricane on October 1, 2015, while steaming from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. On or around February 18, 1971, the Glomar Explorer , a top secret ship was designed and built for the CIA to raise a sunken Soviet submarine lost 2 years earlier in

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312-541: The C4 ships. MARCOM prioritized Sun's expertise in building urgently needed T2-SE-A1 tankers and withdrew 20 C4s from Sun and assigned them to Kaiser's Richmond, California yard. The Sun ships, designated C4-S-B2, became War Shipping Administration troopships operated by commercial agents or Navy hospital ships. Sun continued as a merchant shipbuilder after the war, but sold the South and #4 Yards for industrial development. In

338-459: The Pacific. The ship's construction required a purpose built crane ship , Sun 800 , to lift its 630-ton gimbal into place. The company was sold to Pennsylvania Shipbuilding in 1982, and closed in 1989. The Central Yard site has been sold or leased for multiple uses, while the North Yard is now an independent cargo terminal. In 2006, a new casino then named "Harrah's Chester" opened on

364-587: The Sun Ship site and after a rename in May 2012 is currently in operation as " Harrah's Philadelphia ". Category: Ships built by the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company 39°50′56″N 75°21′05″W  /  39.84898°N 75.351409°W  / 39.84898; -75.351409 T2 tanker The T2 tanker , or T2 , was a class of oil tanker constructed and produced in large numbers in

390-516: The United States during World War II . Only the T3 tankers were larger "navy oilers" of the period. Some 533 T2s were built between 1940 and the end of 1945. They were used to transport fuel oil , diesel fuel , gasoline and sometimes black oil-crude oil . Post war many T2s remained in use; like other hastily built World War II ships pressed into peacetime service, there were safety concerns. As

416-411: The black workers to yard #4. Sun Shipbuilding built 281 T2 tankers during World War II, about 40% of the U.S. wartime total. It also built hospital ships, cargo ships, and escort carriers for the United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM). On 27 September 1941, it contributed one of the 14 ships launched on Liberty Fleet Day : SS Surprise . Sun Shipbuilding originally had a contract to build 30 of

442-487: The bridge to traffic for 20 months and resulted in damages totaling $ 9.7 million. The ship was later renamed SS Belofin Floridian shortly before being scrapped in 1997. Sun Shipbuilding %26 Drydock Co. Its primary product was tankers , but the company built many types of ships over its 70-year history. During World War II , it participated in the U.S. Government's Emergency Shipbuilding Program . The company

468-609: The company experienced tremendous success over the following decades. In the 1920s, it had become a large shipyard that built tankers for the Standard Oil Company . In 1936, the Pew family offered John J. McClure and his Republican political machine control over hiring at Sun Shipbuilding as patronage to lure him out of retirement after the scandal involving the Rum Ring Trial. By the start of World War II , Sun

494-566: The original T2s except for having less powerful engines of 7,700 hp (5,700 kW). Twenty-five of this design were ordered by the Maritime Commission, of which five became Navy oilers as the Chiwawa class . T2-A-MC-K had a M.C. deadweight tonnage of 16,300 and a full load tonnage of 22,445. The dimensions were: Length: 526 ft (160 m), Beam: 68 ft (21 m) and max. draft: 30 ft 10 in (9.40 m). Powered by turbine engines rated at 12,000 hp (8,900 kW) with

520-429: The problem suggested the cause was poor welding techniques. It was found the steel (that had been successfully used in riveted ship design) was not well suited for the new wartime welding construction. The high sulfur content made the steel brittle and prone to metal fatigue at lower temperatures. The T2 design was formalized by the United States Maritime Commission as its medium-sized "National Defense tanker",

546-545: The ship was transferred to Marine Navigation Sulphur Carriers Inc., and rebuilt into a liquid sulfur carrier at Baltimore and renamed SS  Marine Floridian . She was a 5,700 ton, 523-foot-long (159 m) ocean-going tanker . On 24 February 1977, Marine Floridian collided with the Benjamin Harrison Bridge , a drawbridge over the James River near Hopewell, Virginia . The collision closed

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572-704: Was acquired by the United States Navy from the Maritime Administration as political tensions in the Middle East heightened. The ship was assigned to the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), as USNS Paoli (T-AO-157) on 15 October 1956, and was operated by Marine Transport Lines Inc. Paoli served until returned to MARAD custody and struck from the Navy List on 2 October 1957. On 2 February 1966,

598-471: Was also part of the U.S. aerospace industry during the Cold War ; it built various propulsion research & development structures , including the largest U.S. rocket test chamber, for Aerojet General in 1963. The company was developed by Sun Oil Company , and launched its first ship in 1917, just as the United States was entering World War I . Under the direction of its president, John Glenn Pew ,

624-402: Was among the country's five largest shipyards, with eight slipways . Twenty slipways were added during the war, making Sun Ship the country's largest shipyard. At its peak, the company employed more than 40,000 workers at four shipyards. During World War II, Sun Shipbuilding was the largest private-sector employer of African-Americans in the United States and controversially segregated many of

650-537: Was found during the war, the United States Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation in 1952 stated that in cold weather the ships were prone to metal fatigue cracking, so were "belted" with steel straps. This occurred after two T2s, Pendleton and Fort Mercer , split in two off Cape Cod within hours of each other. Pendleton ' s sinking is memorialized in the 2016 film The Finest Hours . Engineering inquiries into

676-610: Was nearly identical to the T2-SE-A1 version, except with 10,000 hp (7,500 kW) rather than 7,240. The A3 variation was essentially an A2 built as a naval oiler from the start, rather than converted later as many A2s were. Two of the A2 ships would be converted to the Pasig -class of distilling ships . Despite the confusing T3 designation, the T3-S-A1s built by Bethlehem Sparrows Point for Standard Oil of New Jersey were identical to

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