USNS Taurus (T-AK-273) - Service History

Service History

In May, 1959 Taurus made her first cargo run, from New York to St. Nazaire. Over the next nine years, she continued to carry cargo for MSTS in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. On 1 January 1963 Taurus was re-designated vehicle landing ship LSV-8. During the mid-1960s she carried cargo to ports in South Vietnam in support of the American effort in the Vietnam War. She also was used by NASA, along with the USNS Point Barrow (T-AKD-1), to carry S-IVB and S-II stages of the Saturn V moon rocket from their production facilities in California to the Mississippi Test Facility and the Kennedy Space Center during the mid-1960s. Never commissioned, Taurus went out of service at Yokosuka, Japan, in September 1968. She was transferred back to the Maritime Administration on 25 June 1969 and was sold on the same day to the Union Minerals and Alloy Corporation of New York City. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register almost two years later, on 22 June 1971. Her final fate is unknown.