USNS Mission San Jose (T-AO-125)

Career
Laid down:	17 July 1943
Launched:	7 October 1943
Acquired:	5 November 1947
In service:	5 November 1947
Out of service:	15 October 1957
Struck:	15 October 1957
Fate:	Sold, 24 June 1966
General characteristics
Displacement:	21,880 tons full   5,532 tons light
Length:	524 ft (160 m)
Beam:	68 ft (21 m)
Draft:	30 ft (9 m)
Propulsion:	Turbo-electric, single screw, 6,000 hp (4.5 MW)
Speed:	16.5 knots (31 km/h)
Complement:	52 mariners

SS Mission San Jose was a Type T2-SE-A2 tanker built for the United States Maritime Commission during World War II. After the war she was acquired by the United States Navy as USS Mission San Jose (AO-125). Later the tanker transferred to the Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS Mission San Jose (T-AO-125). She was a member of the Mission Buenaventura-class oiler and was named for Mission San José, located in Fremont, California.

Career

Mission San Jose was laid down 17 July 1943 under a Maritime Commission contract by Marine Ship Corporation, Sausalito, California; launched 7 October 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Robert L. Bridges and delivered 29 January 1944. Chartered to Pacific Tankers, Inc. for operations, she spent the remainder of the war carrying fuel to Allied forces overseas. She served in this capacity until 3 May 1946, when she was returned to the Maritime Commission and laid up in the Maritime Reserve Fleet at Mobile, Alabama.

Acquired by the Navy on 5 November 1947, she was placed in service with the Naval Transportation Service as Mission San Jose (AO-125). After 1 October 1949, she was under the operational control of the new Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS Mission San Jose (T-AO-I25). She served with MSTS until 15 October 1957, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register and transferred to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the Maritime Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, California.

Sold to Hudson Waterways Corporation on 24 June 1966 for conversion into a combination container ship and train ferry, she was renamed Ohio on the same day, but was again renamed Seatrain Ohio on 5 August 1967. Upon completion of conversion, and into 1969, Seatrain Ohio carried cargo between the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean, and occasionally to Vietnam.

The ship was ready for scrapping at Beaumont, Texas in the summer of 2008.

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

• "Mission San Jose". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/m12/mission_san_lose.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-12. 
• "T-AO-125 Mission San Jose". Fleet Oiler (AO) Photo Index. http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/19/19125.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-12.