USS General John Pope, name ship of a class of 19,650-ton (full load displacement) transports, was built at Kearny, New Jersey, to the Maritime Commission's P2-S2-R2 design. Placed in ferry commission in July 1943, she was commissioned in full in August 1943. After shakedown and a round-trip voyage to Scotland, in late September the ship arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, where her lifeboats and davits were replaced by liferafts. She was the only ship of her class so modified. In early October 1943 General John Pope sailed for the Pacific and during the next year and a half transported troops between San Francisco, California, and the southwest Pacific. In late 1944 and early 1945 she voyaged from San Francisco to Bombay, India, then carried nearly four-thousand New Zealand troops to Australia and Wellington, New Zealand. She probably recovered her lifeboats and davits at San Francisco in March 1945. Between March and August 1945 the transport made voyages from San Francisco to the Philippines and from Marseilles, France, to Manila. At the end of August 1945 she began the first of five "Magic Carpet" trips, returning combat veterans from the western Pacific to the U. S. West Coast. In June 1946 USS General John Pope was decommissioned and transferred to the U.S. Army.
As USAT General John Pope, she operated as a civilian-manned Army transport until laid up in the later 1940s. Under consideration for commercial sale when the Korean War broke out, in July 1950 the ship was instead turned over to the Navy's new Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), quickly refitted and placed in service as USNS General John Pope. She arrived at Tokyo from San Francisco in late August 1950 on the first of many wartime voyages between the U. S. West Coast and ports in Japan and Korea. The ship was upgraded between February and May 1953 at an Oregon shipyard, receiving air conditioning, increased troop-carrying capacity, and improved safety-at-sea features, among them replacement of her World War II vintage lifeboats and davits with a new arrangement of boats. As the need for large troop transports declined, in May 1955 General John Pope was placed in Reduced Operating Status (with a cadre crew) at Seattle, Washington, and later entered MSTS Ready Reserve (without crew) at Everett, Washington. In September 1958 the transport was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, transferred to the Maritime Administration, and placed in its reserve fleet at Olympia, Washington.
In August 1965 the Navy reacquired General John Pope to support the Vietnam War buildup. Following several years of MSTS service, she was again inactivated and placed in the Maritime Administration Reserve Fleet in May 1970, this time at Suisun Bay, California, but remained on the Naval Vessel Register until stricken in October 1990. The Navy transferred full title to the ship to the Maritime Administration in September 1992. The last survivor of her class, General John Pope remains at Suisun Bay in December 2006 in "Non-Retention, Historic Hold" status.
This page features most of the views we have concerning USS General John Pope (AP-110), USAT General John Pope, and USNS General John Pope (T-AP-110).
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS General John Pope (AP-110). The following list features some of these images:
The images listed below are NOT in
the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our
page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".
Port broadside (slightly toward the bow) surface view of USS General John Pope underway on 25 August 1943, photographed by the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia. As on many otherwise excellent Norfolk Navy Yard photographs, modifications from the latest yard period have been crudely circled in pen. Port quarter aerial view of USS General John Pope (AP-110) underway on 28 August 1943, photographed from an aircraft based at Hampton Roads Naval Air Station, Virginia. The ship is carrying its original outfit of lifeboats and Welin davits. As Photo #: 80-G-79931, but port bow aerial view. As Photo #: 80-G-79931, but port quarter aerial view (less toward the stern than in 80-G-79931). As Photo #: 80-G-79931, but port broadside (somewhat toward the stern) aerial view. As Photo #: 80-G-79931, but starboard broadside (somewhat toward the stern) aerial view.
Port quarter high aerial view of USS General John Pope underway on 8 October 1943, photographed from an aircraft based at Hampton Roads Naval Air Station. The ship's boats and davits have been replaced by liferafts. As Photo #: 80-G-83414, but port broadside (somewhat toward the stern) low aerial view. As Photo #: 80-G-83414, but starboard bow (rather toward the broadside) high aerial view.
Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center. The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions". |
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 22 January 2007
New image added and captions correcteds 12 February 2007