USS Custer
1942 Bayfield-class attack transport
USS Custer (AP-85/APA-40) was a Bayfield-class attack transport in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service in 1948 and was scrapped in 1973.
History
USS Custer (AP-85) was launched as SS Sea Eagle 6 November 1942 by Ingalls Shipbuilding Co., Pascagoula, Mississippi, under a U.S. Maritime Commission contract; sponsored by Mrs. L. S. Border. Her original passenger capacity was 12, and was to carry a crew of 52 with an original cargo carrying capacity of 16,628 tons.
The United States Navy received the ship on 23 January 1943 and renamed her the USS Custer (APA-40) in honor of the several Custer counties in the United States. Custer moved to the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, Hoboken, New Jersey, to be converted into, and armed as an attack transport - the period of conversion consumed 159 days. On 18 July 1943, Custer was placed in full commission at Pier 1, Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Her trial run was made on the East River on 28 July 1943. Post-trial repairs were made at Pier 36, Brooklyn, and were completed on 9 August 1943.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “USS Custer” as 1942 Bayfield-class attack transport. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1942 Bayfield-class attack transport. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7868690. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1946, 1948 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Custer” 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.