USS Luzon (ARG-2)
internal combustion engine repair ship
USS Luzon (ARG-2) was an internal combustion engine repair ship in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1947 and from 1950 to 1960. She was the lead ship in a class of twelve ships and was scrapped in 1974.
Construction
Luzon was laid down 8 April 1943, as liberty ship SS Samuel Bowles, under a Maritime Commission (MARCOM) contract, MCE hull 981, by the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, Inc., in Baltimore, Maryland; launched 14 May 1943; sponsored by Mrs. H. E. Sigman; acquired by the Navy and renamed Luzon 24 May 1943; commissioned 12 October 1943. She was named for the island of Luzon, the chief island in the northern Philippines and site of the capital city of Manila. She was the second U.S. naval vessel to bear the name.
Service history
World War II
After shakedown in Chesapeake Bay, she departed Norfolk, Virginia 28 November, for duty in the Pacific. She transited the Panama Canal 6 December, and arrived the Ellice Islands 3 January 1944. Assigned to Service Squadron 4, she operated at Funafuti and provided repair facilities for amphibious, patrol, and landing craft. Following the invasion of the Marshall Islands on 31 January, she steamed for Kwajalein Atoll on 23 February, and arrived there on 4 March.
“USS Luzon (ARG-2)” enters the record as internal combustion engine repair ship. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Luzon, ARG-2 and internal can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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