USS Ray K. Edwards
1944 Crosley-class high speed transport
USS Ray K. Edwards (APD-96), ex-DE-237, was a United States Navy high-speed transport in commission from 1945 to 1946.
Namesake
Ray Keith Edwards was born on 11 November 1923 in Chicago, Illinois. He enlisted in the United States Navy on 16 June 1941. He requested transfer to the United States Marine Corps and became a corporal on 23 February 1942. He was killed in action on 12 September 1942 during a Japanese air attack on Guadalcanal. He posthumously was awarded the Silver Star.
Construction and commissioning
Ray K. Edwards was laid down as the Rudderow-class destroyer escort USS Ray K. Edwards (DE-237) on 1 December 1943 by the Charleston Navy Yard in Charleston, South Carolina and was launched on 19 February 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Lena M. Edwards, Corporal Edwards' mother. The ship was reclassified as a Crosley-class high-speed transport and redesignated APD-96 on 17 July 1944. After conversion to her new role, she was commissioned on 11 June 1945.
The public source identifies “USS Ray K. Edwards” as 1944 Crosley-class high speed transport. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Edwards, Crosley-class and high.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Ray K. Edwards” 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.