List of Ships of The United States Army - Transport Ships

Transport Ships

This is a list, presently incomplete, of ships in Army service under one of the following arrangements:

• Army owned
• Under bareboat charter (Army management of all operational aspects including crewing)
• Allocated by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) for varying periods with commercial crews
• Under a charter of the time or voyage type to Army with normal commercial crews

Ships known to fall in each of these categories appear in the list below.

In general only ships owned, under long term bareboat charter or allocation to the Army, first through the Quartermaster Corps and later the Transportation Corps, were formally designated as a U.S. Army Transport (U.S.A.T.). Those under other arrangements continued operating as SS NAME. Essentially all maritime commercial cargo and passenger type vessels were under strict control of WSA under Executive Order No. 9054. Exempted from WSA control were combatants, vessels owned by Army or Navy and coastal and inland vessels.

The FS numbered vessels and Army tugs do not normally have U.S.A.T. in their names. They and other smaller Army craft were simply designated as Army with "U.S. Army" over the number (photos).