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USS Lassen (AE-3)

ammunition ship of the United States Navy

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 10, 2025
Entity authorityQ7871167 ↗
Source-derived summary

USS Lassen (AE-3) was built as MS Shooting Star under a U.S. Maritime Commission contract, was delivered to the U.S. Navy after sea trials, and became an ammunition cargo ship during World War II. Like many Naval ships of this category that carried large amounts of explosive cargo, she was named for a volcano (or a volcanic island). In this case, the ship was named for Lassen Peak, a volcano in northern California that erupted heavily in 1914–17.

Construction and commission

Shooting Star was built by the Tampa Shipbuilding Company in Tampa, Florida, under a Maritime Commission contract. She was the second of eight C2 type motor ships of a series constructed by Tampa Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Tampa, Florida powered by twin Nordberg diesels, the first being Sea Witch. The ship was intended for American Pioneer Line's service to Asia and Australia.

She was launched on 10 January 1940, christened by Mrs. Fred C. Cone. The ship was acquired by the Navy on 15 November 1940, and commissioned four days later for transfer to a shipyard in Mobile, Alabama, for conversion to a naval ammunition ship, with Lieutenant Commander A. B. Kerr in command. The vessel was re-commissioned in her modified form on 27 March 1941, with Commander Russell S. Berkey of the U.S. Navy in command.

Service history

World War II

In the months previous to the outbreak of World War II for the United States, the Lassen made ammunition deliveries along both the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts of the U.S., and in July 1941, she steamed to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, and then returned to the Atlantic Coast.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “USS Lassen (AE-3)” as ammunition ship of the United States Navy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lassen, AE-3 and ammunition.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1914, 1940, 1941—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Lassen, AE-3 and ammunition providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “USS Lassen (AE-3)”, the useful work is to connect “ammunition ship of the United States Navy” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 10, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7871167. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1914, 1940 and 1941.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow USS Lassen (AE-3) primary sources, USS Lassen (AE-3) archive and Lassen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “USS Lassen (AE-3)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.