Use in World War II
Barracks ships in the combat area provided necessary residence for sailors and merchantmen whose ship had been sunk, or whose ship had been so damaged that on-board berthing was no longer possible.
Non-self-propelled barracks ships were used by the U.S. Navy in forward areas during World War II, especially in the Pacific Ocean, and were designated APL, such as APL-18 which was commissioned in 1944 and had the following specifications:
- Displacement 1,300 t.(lt), 2,580 t.(fl)
- Length 261 ft (80 m)
- Beam 49 ft (15 m)
- Draft 11 ft (3.4 m)
- Complement unknown
- Accommodations 5 Officers, 358 Enlisted
Transport ships were also used as barracks by other war-time navies, such as the Kriegsmarine's SS General San Martin.
Read more about this topic: Barracks Ship
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“You see, in a world where elephants are pursued by flying men, people are just naturally going to want to get high.”
—Judith Rascoe, U.S. screenwriter, Robert Stone (b. 1939)
“War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to “feel good” about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)