Career
Mission San Francisco was laid down on 5 May 1945 as Contocook under a Maritime Commission contract by Marinship Corporation, Sausalito, California; launched on 18 September 1945, sponsored by Mrs. John J. Manning; and delivered on 11 October 1945. Chartered to Deconhill Shipping Company, upon her delivery, for operations, she served until 14 April 1946 when she was returned to the Maritime Commission and laid up in the Maritime Reserve Fleet at Mobile, Alabama.
Acquired by the Navy on 28 October 1947, she was placed in service with the Naval Transportation Service as Mission San Francisco (AO-123). Taken over by the Military Sea Transportation Service on 1 October 1949 she was redesignated USNS Mission San Francisco (T-AO-123) and served under MSTS until 18 January 1954, when she was returned to the Maritime Administration and laid up in the Maritime Reserve Fleet at Beaumont, Texas.
Reacquired by the Navy on 20 October 1956, she was once again placed in service with MSTS and chartered to Mathiasens Tanker Industries. Her period of service with MSTS was short. On 7 March 1957 while passing New Castle, Delaware, she collided with the Liberian freighter Elna II. The shock of the collision caused Mission San Francisco to catch fire and explode, breaking her in two. The explosion killed 10 men, including her master, Capt. William Allen. Immediately after the collision, Elna II backed off but in her attempts to avoid the burning hulk she ran aground. Due to bad weather, rescue attempts were slow, but all aboard Elna II and the survivors of Mission San Francisco were rescued by the United States Coast Guard. Declared unsalvageable by the Navy, Mission San Francisco was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 20 March 1957.
Read more about this topic: USNS Mission San Francisco (T-AO-123)
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)