User:Buster40004/Sandbox/Projects/SS Brown Victory

SS BROWN VICTORY --

The SS Brown Victory was an AP3 freighter owned by Maritime Commission, was built and completed by Oregon Ship Building Corp. in February 1945. She was operated by Alaska Packers, Inc. The Brown Victory sailed out of Seattle, Washington, with her master, Terje Andreas Johannsen, headed for Ie Shima, Ryukyu Islands with a cargo of 1,000 tons of gasoline and trucks.

The Brown Victory anchored off of the island of Ie Shima and began discharging her cargo some time around May 18 & 19th 1945. Well low and behold she no sooner got into this cargo transfer and an air attack came upon the group of ships in this area.

A Japanese bomber carrying two bombs decided to single out the Brown Victory and started into a dive toward the ship....sighting on to the port quarter of the Brown Victory. Well there didn’t seem to be anything to slow this guy down....even after the U.S. Armed Guards threw everything they had at the plane coming in....so the Jap plane hit the after mast about fifteen feet below the crosstrees and carried away all the after cargo booms.

Half of the plane fell on the starboard side, the bombs he was carrying exploded, and the plane burst into flames, all of this showered the Brown Victory with shrapnel.

Fires was more or less contained aft of the superstructure and in the #4 hold. Firefighting parties were quick to react from the nine officers, forty-seven men....and twenty-seven U.S. Navy Armed Guards.....as well as one passenger on board.

Luckily it didn’t take long for the steam smothering system and fire hoses had the fires controlled in a short time frame. Actually the master listed the damage to the ship as slight - the principal damage being done to the masts and booms that were struck by the plane.

Two Armed Guards died immediately, and the flames and explosion injured eighteen others. One merchant crewman and another Armed Guard later died ashore form their injuries. The Brown Victory left the Okinawa area on June 6th and arrived in San Francisco on June 26, 1945.....with a brief stop at Saipan on June 12th.

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Well the Brown Victory was repaired...and was fit to be used if needed Anchored & attacked off Ie shima Island Eventually the Brown Victory was sold in 1947 to Moore-McCormack Lines, they used her for another twenty-three yrs....under the name of “Mormacpine.” In July 1970 the ex Brown Victory was scrapped by Ship breakers, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

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Author: Bud Shortridge