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SS Arthur M Huddell with pipe handling gear (cable tanks) for the Normandy invasion in holds 4 and 5.
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Class: ARTHUR M HUDDELL (YAG 55?)
Design: MC EC2-S-C1
Displacement (tons): 3,900 light, 13,710 full
Dimensions (feet): 442' oa, 416' pp x 57' e/wl x 28' max nav
Armament: none
Accommodations: unk.
Speed (kts.): 11
Propulsion (HP): 2,500
Machinery: Steam triple expansion reciprocating, 2 boilers (220psi/450deg), 1 screw

Construction:

YAG	Name	Acq	Builder	Keel	Launch	Svc
55?	SS ARTHUR M HUDDELL	(1956)	St Johns River SB	25 Oct 1943	7 Dec 1943	(1956)

Disposition:

YAG	Name	T	Inact	Strike	Disposal	Fate	MA Sale
55?	SS ARTHUR M HUDDELL		(1957)	--	(1957)	MA	30 June 2008

Class Notes:
The attribution of the designator IX 55 to the specially-fitted Liberty ship ARTHUR M HUDDELL has been found in only one secondary source, navsource.net, but it is consistent with the way the YAG designator was then being used, no other candidates have been identified, and the timing is right.

In 1942 the British began to develop a "pipeline under the ocean" (PLUTO) to provide fuel to Allied armies invading France through Normandy. Two types of pipe were developed, one being similar to submarine telegraph cable except that the lack of a solid core made it unusually delicate. A total of 710 miles of this HAIS cable was produced, 140 miles in the United States and the remainder in England. To transport the American cable to England the Liberty ship ARTHUR M HUDDELL had number 4 and 5 holds converted to cable tanks. She departed New York on 22 September 1944 carrying 70 miles of coiled pipe plus general cargo. She then spent 84 days in London unloading 17 miles of the pipe into a cable laying ship and discharging the remainder at the dock.

As the ship’s pipe and cable-handling fittings had been left intact when she was laid up at the end of the war she was bareboat chartered from the MARAD James River reserve fleet by AT&T on 23 February 1956 and used to transport undersea telephone and communication cables that were to be laid between the US mainland, Hawaii and Alaska in support of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line. On completion of this activity the ship was transferred to the MARAD Reserve Fleet at Astoria, Oregon, on 11 October 1957. This is the period during which she would have been designated YAG 55 for record purposes within the Bureau of Ships (see a similar case on the YAG 59 page), although the Navy did not acquire her.

ARTHUR M HUDDELL was transferred to the Navy on 8 Dec 1977 and the navy took physical delivery of the ship at Suisun Bay on 13 December 1977. Her propeller, rudder, lifeboats and most of her equipment were removed and she was converted to a barge in July 1978 by Todd Shipyards at Alameda, Calif., for use in supporting cable operations for the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Two years later, following the loading of cables from the Simplex Wire & Cable Company pier in Newington, NH, the vessel was again employed in cable transport operations, this time in conjunction with the cable ship LONG LINES. In 1982, ARTHUR M HUDDELL was used in US Navy cable-laying operations in the Pacific. The Navy returned her to MARAD on 22 Aug 1983 and she was laid up in the James River.

Her special cable transport fittings kept her off the Liberty Ship disposal lists with the result that by 2005 ARTHUR M HUDDELL was one of only three Liberty ships remaining afloat, the others being JOHN W BROWN and JEREMIAH O'BRIEN, both of which had been restored as fully operational museum ships. On 30 June 2008 an agreement was signed between MARAD and Greece gifting ARTHUR M HUDDELL to Greece, where she is now the beautifully restored memorial ship HELLAS LIBERTY at Piraeus.

Ship Notes:

YAG	Name	MCE	Notes
55?	SS ARTHUR M HUDDELL	1215	(compl. 18 Dec 1943). Given to Greece as merchant marine memorial 30 Jun 2008.

Page Notes:
Compiled: 20 Oct 2021
© Stephen S. Roberts, 2021
Special sources: vesselhistory.marad.dot.gov/documents/Arthur_M._Huddell_HAER_Report.pdf