CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

USS Graffias

U.S. Navy war ship commisioned in 1944

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 26, 2026
Entity authorityQ7869794 ↗
Source-derived summary

USS Graffias (AF-29), a Hyades-class stores ship, is the only ship of the United States Navy to have this name. The name Graffias is another name for the star Beta Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius.

The Graffias was originally laid down in 1943 as Topa Topa, a Maritime Commission type (C2-S-E1) hull under Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1610) at the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, Chickasaw, Alabama. The ship was acquired by the United States Navy on 19 February 1944 and subsequently converted by the Bethlehem Steel Company, Baltimore, Maryland. The Graffias was commissioned at Baltimore on 28 October 1944.

Initial operations

After a brief shakedown along the East Coast, Graffias sailed for the Pacific on 25 November as a unit of ServRon Ten. Reaching Ulithi on 31 December, she discharged her valuable cargo of provisions and returned to San Francisco, California, a month later. Laden with foodstuffs and provisions for the staging areas and the front, Graffias made two more San Francisco-Ulithi voyages through May 1945.

The refrigerator-cargo ship returned to Pearl Harbor on 31 May and from there sailed again to Ulithi with provisions, returning to Hawaii on 14 July. After repairs at Pearl Harbor, Graffias sailed to Adak, Alaska, reaching port on 18 August.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “USS Graffias” is u.S. Navy war ship commisioned in 1944. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Graffias, Navy and ship, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1943, 1610, 1944, 1945—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Graffias, Navy and ship is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “u.S. Navy war ship commisioned in 1944” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7869794. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1610, 1944 and 1945.

Critical limits

Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “USS Graffias”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow USS Graffias primary sources, USS Graffias archive and Graffias 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

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “USS Graffias”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “USS Graffias” 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.