Arthur Middleton-class attack transport
1941 class of American attack transports
The Arthur Middleton-class attack transport was a class of three US Navy attack transports that saw most of their service in World War II. Ships of the class were named after signatories of the American Declaration of Independence.
Like all attack transports, the purpose of the Arthur Middleton class was to transport troops and their equipment to hostile shores to execute amphibious invasions. To perform this task, attack transports were equipped with a substantial number of integral landing craft, and heavily armed with antiaircraft weaponry to protect themselves and their vulnerable cargo of troops from air attack in the battle zone.
Background
The Arthur Middleton class was based on the Maritime Commission's ubitiquous Type C3 hull - specifically the C3-P&C (Passenger and Cargo) type. This hull type had been designed with both merchant cargo service and naval auxiliary service in mind.
All three ships were laid down by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Company of Pascagoula, Mississippi, between July and October 1940. Time between initial laying of the keel to commission for each vessel varied from 20 to 26 months - an unusually long time, which suggests the shipyard may have experienced delays or had other priorities. The first to be commissioned was Samuel Chase on 13 June 1942, followed by the George Clymer two days later. Arthur Middleton, the lead ship of the class, was laid down first, but not commissioned until 7 September 1942, about three months later. The ships were initially classified as transports (AP), but were redesignated attack transports (APA) on 1 February 1943, the date on which several other classes of transport ships were redesignated.
The public source identifies “Arthur Middleton-class attack transport” as 1941 class of American attack transports. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Arthur, Middleton-class and attack.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arthur Middleton-class attack transport” 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.