About the Shipscribe site
The Shipscribe site and domain are owned and operated by Stephen S. Roberts. Their initial purpose was to publish information on U.S. Navy auxiliary vessels collected by the author in the archives as a sequel to his book Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990, which covered only combatant ships. Work began in June 2000. Construction of this site was interrupted by the death of the author's wife, Sue Goetz Ross, on 27 March 2002. The U.S. ship reference sections and the French Navy section were added in mid-2004. Intensive work on the auxiliary vessel section resumed in late 2005 and concluded in 2013. The article by the late Norman L. McKellar was added in 2007 with the kind permission of Mrs. Hazel McKellar. The "Spring Styles" drawings were added on 26 April 2015 and the World War I temporary auxiliaries section was added in May 2015 following the deletion of the Online Library of Selected Images from the web site of the Naval History and Heritage Command. A new section on auxiliary vessels since 1945 was added between 2021 and 2024, bringing the site's full coverage of U.S. Navy auxiliaries up to 1980 and summary coverage up to the present.
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June 2024: Began a major upgrade of the section on Shipbuilding under the U. S. Shipping Board, 1917-1921, adding to the text by Norman McKellar plans, photographs, finding aids, lists of tugs, and new information from the National Archives. May 2024: Completed the section on U.S. Navy Auxiliary Ships since 1945. As with the rest of this site, additional changes, corrections, and enhancements will be made as appropriate. October 2023: Completed initial version of the section on U.S. Navy Auxiliary Ships since 1945, which extends full coverage of the Navy's auxiliary ships to 1980 and of its underway replenishment ships to the present, and also provides summary information on other auxiliaries since 1980. October 2022: Made the site usable on mobile devices, in hopes of reaching more users. On a smartphone, Landscape mode works best. In Portrait, swipe tables R/L to scroll them. August 2022: Changed the site email contact address. The old one was not forwarding reliably. July 2021: Began building a section on U.S. Navy Auxiliary Ships since 1945. July 2021: Added Cochrane collection and restructured portions of the site including the front page. April 2021: Added links to the 1912 and 1914 Alaskan Radio Expeditions to the top page of the site and added three pages of photos. April 2021: Replaced the oldest and smallest photos in the original auxiliary vessels portion of this site with larger ones sized to fit in a modern browser on a 1920 x 1080 pixel desktop monitor. On a smaller screen or for a vertical photo, click on the displayed photo to enlarge it (with scroll bars), and click again to return to the original view. (Update: This still works in 2024 on Firefox and Edge but Google did something to Chrome and the photos are now a bit too large there.) Smartphones are not affected. March 2021: Added a ship name index to the auxiliary vessels portion of this site. 2018-2021: Wrote book French Warships in the Age of Steam, 1859-1914. 2015-2017: With Rif Winfield wrote book French Warships in the Age of Sail, 1626-1786. April 2015: Added U.S. Navy "Spring Styles" section. 2013-2015: With Rif Winfield wrote book French Warships in the Age of Sail, 1786-1861. June-July 2013: Completed the flagship section of this site, U.S. Navy Auxiliary Ships, 1835-1945, which covers ships built and acquired from the Navy's first purpose-built auxiliary vessel, USS Relief, in 1835 to the end of World War II in 1945. from June 2000 to July 2013 click here. |
The author's first two feline helpers:
Ashley, 13 June 1994 - 9 December 2006 (left)
Bradley, 14 May 1994 - 30 June 2008 (right)
Sue Goetz Ross and Ashley.
The author's second two feline helpers as apprentices:
Abigail (left) and Schuyler (right)
Both born 8 May 2008 and in residence 2 August 2008.
You can see more of their pictures by clicking this link to "ships cats" on Flickr.
Schuyler (left) and Abigail fully grown, in 2011.
They passed on 20 April 2022 and 16 June 2023 respectively.
The author's newest feline helper.
Cali is an eleven-plus year old Calico cat adopted from the Animal Welfare League of Arlington, Va. She arrived here on 3 August 2023.
A small gallery of Cali photos is HERE.