Qualla: USS General M. C. Meigs

USS General M. C. Meigs: Introduction

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA, CC BY 2.0. The last voyage of the USS General M. C. Meigs was supposed to be uneventful. In 1972, the retired troop transport was under tow to a layup facility in Suisun Bay, California, when a storm snapped her towline off the Washington coast. Without power or crew to save her, the ship drifted onto the rocks and grounded. Over the next four years she broke apart, leaking 440,000 liters of heavy fuel oil into the Pacific. It was an ugly end for a vessel that had spent three decades hauling soldiers across the world's oceans -- from the beaches of Italy to the ports of Korea, through some of the most consequential troop movements of the twentieth century.

Read more: USS General M. C. Meigs on Qualla

Image: Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA | CC BY 2.0

USS General M. C. Meigs: Built for Speed and Bodies

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. General M. C. Meigs was launched on March 13, 1944, from the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Kearny, New Jersey, under a Maritime Commission wartime contract. She was a General John Pope-class transport, designation AP-116, designed for one purpose: moving troops fast...

Read more: USS General M. C. Meigs on Qualla

Image: Public domain

USS General M. C. Meigs: Brazil to the Front

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. After two round-trip voyages carrying troops between Newport News, Virginia, and Naples, Italy, General Meigs received an unusual assignment. She sailed to Rio de Janeiro, where Brazilian President Getulio Vargas came aboard to inspect the ship. She then embarked 5,200 troops of ...

Read more: USS General M. C. Meigs on Qualla

Image: Public domain

USS General M. C. Meigs: Nineteen Cruises to Korea

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Navy, Public domain. Decommissioned in San Francisco in 1946 and briefly operated as a civilian passenger ship by American President Lines, General Meigs was recalled when war broke out in Korea in 1950. Assigned to the Military Sea Transportation Service and crewed by civilians rather than military ...

Read more: USS General M. C. Meigs on Qualla

Image: U.S. Navy | Public domain

USS General M. C. Meigs: Oil on the Rocks

Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. By 1955, General Meigs was placed in Reduced Operational Status. In 1958, she was transferred to the Maritime Administration and mothballed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Olympia, Washington -- one of hundreds of aging vessels kept in reserve against a future need that ...

Read more: USS General M. C. Meigs on Qualla

Image: Public domain