USS Henderson, a 10,000-ton (displacement) troop transport built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, was commissioned in May 1917. In June she sailed from New York as part of the cruiser and transport force that carried the Allied Expeditionary Force to France. Returning in July 1917, she made eight more wartime voyages to France with troops and supplies for the Western Front. Following the Armistice in November 1918 she completed another eight transatlantic voyages bringing veterans home.
In late December 1919 Henderson shifted her operations to the Caribbean, where she became the support ship for troop rotations by Marine units in Cuba, Haiti, and other islands. In the early 1920s she extended her transportation of Marines and other U.S. service personnel to the Far East. This service was occasionally broken by ceremonial assignments, including carrying senior officials to observe the trials of aircraft bombing against battleships off the Virginia Capes in July 1921, taking Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and members of the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 1881 to Japan in 1922, and transporting President Warren G. Harding to Alaska in July 1923. During the peacetime years, Henderson also participated in amphibious landing exercises.
After 1927 Henderson's operations focused primarily on the Pacific, where she transported men between the West Coast and the Pacific islands, the Philippines, and the China coast. Following the outbreak of war between the U.S. and Japan in December 1941, the ship was assigned duty transporting men and cargo between California and Hawaii. Ultimately she made over twenty such voyages. On her last voyage as a transport, between July and September 1943, she delivered nurses to Noumea and Seabees to the Solomons. USS Henderson was decommissioned in October 1943 and began conversion to a hospital ship. She returned to active service in March 1944 as Bountiful (AH-9), and retained that name and designation until she was sold for scrapping in early 1948.
This page features, and provides links to, all the views we have concerning USS Henderson (Transport # 1, later AP-1), which became USS Bountiful (AH-9) in 1944.
For other images related to this ship, see:
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.
USS Henderson is seen in the background of the following photograph of another subject:
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Henderson (AP-1). The following list features this image:
The image listed below is NOT in the
Naval History and Heritage Command's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our
page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".
USS Henderson (AP-1) underway near shore, with hills in the background, circa 1942-1943. The ship is painted in wartime grey camouflage, possibly Measure 21, and location may be San Francisco Bay California, as the photo is credited to Naval Air Station, Moffett Field. The photo is mis-captioned as USS Harry Lee (AP-17), and the date given, 11 April 1944, is after Henderson was converted to a hospital ship. Starboard side aerial view, rather toward the stern. Reproductions of this image should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval History and Heritage Command. The image listed in this box is NOT in the Naval History and Heritage Command's collections. DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions". |
For other images related to this ship, see:
NOTES:
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 15 July 2004
Coding updated 4 January 2008