Arthur M. Huddell (ship)

Arthur M. Huddell

The Hellas Liberty in the port of Piraeus

Ship data flag  United States Greece   other ship names Hellas Liberty Ship type Cargo ship class Liberty freighter Shipyard St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company , Jacksonville , USA Build number 1215 Keel laying October 25, 1943 Launch December 7, 1943 Whereabouts Museum ship in Piraeus

Ship dimensions and crew length 134.57 m ( Lüa ) width 17.3 m Draft Max. 7.7 m displacement 14,257 t

Machine system machine 2 × Combustion Engineering Oil Fired Steam Boiler Filer and Stowell Triple Expansion Steam Engine Machine performance 2,500 hp (1,839 kW) Top speed 11.0 kn (20 km / h) propeller 1

Armament 8 × 20-millimeter (0.79 in) flak 1 × 3-inch (76.2 mm) cannon 4 × Twin Mark 12 5 "/ 38 (127 mm) guns

Others Classifications American Bureau of Shipping Registration numbers IMO no. 5025706

The Arthur M. Huddell is a Liberty freighter that was built in the United States during World War II . The ship was named after Arthur M. Huddell (1869-1931), the former president of the International Union of Operating Engineers . Today it is moored as the museum ship Hellas Liberty in the western ferry port of Piraeus and can be viewed there. It was used to transport pipelines during Operation PLUTO in World War II .

Times of war

During the Second World War, the Arthur M. Huddell first transported supplies in a convoy from Jacksonville to London in February 1944 and then returned to Norfolk . In April 1944 she transported ammunition from Charleston to Oran in Algeria . After returning to the United States , the ship was converted to transport pipelines in the summer of 1944 and now transported pipelines for the construction of an undersea pipeline from England to France. She took on the first and last shipments of 70 miles (112.7 km) each of pipelines from New York to the destination. She then transported coal, other goods and passengers between the USA, France, Italy and Algeria.

After the war

After the war she was in Suisun Bay launched . She was chartered by AT&T in 1956 and converted into a cable lay for the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line . She was then taken over by the United States Navy in the reserve fleet between 1957 and 1964 . It was then used to build the Sound Surveillance System until 1984 . Now she was laid up on the James River and classified as a ship without its own propulsion and served as a spare parts store for the John W. Brown .

Museum ship

In 2008 Arthur M. Huddell was acquired by the Greek entrepreneur Vassilis C. Constantakopoulos . First she was checked for her seaworthiness in Norfolk before she was towed to Piraeus by the Polish tug Posidon . She was restored in a shipyard in Perama and the missing rudder was replaced by a new one. To replace the missing screw , the US government gave the Greek government a propeller from a Victory ship . Since June 2010 it has been lying as Hellas Liberty in the western ferry port of Piraeus and can be visited. It houses the Hellas Liberty Museum .

Web links

Commons : Hellas Liberty  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• THE HELLAS LIBERTY MUSEUM

literature

• Brian Clayton, "Arthur M. Huddell (HAER No. VA-132)" Historic American Engineering Record. , National Park Service, US Department of the Interior 2011 ( online )

Coordinates: 37 ° 56 ′ 32.7 "  N , 23 ° 37 ′ 51.4"  E