Troopship#Designation

Ships to transport troops were used in antiquity. Ancient Rome used the navis lusoria, a small vessel powered by rowers and sail, to move soldiers on the Rhine and Danube.{{cite web |url= http://www2.rgzm.de/navis/Musea/Mainz/NavismusEngl.htm |author=Pferdehirt B |title= The Museum of Ancient Shipping |access-date=August 3, 2010}}

File:RMS Queen Mary 20Jun1945 NewYork.jpeg

The modern troopship has as long a history as passenger ships do, as most maritime nations enlisted their support in military operations (either by leasing the vessels or by impressing them into service) when their normal naval forces were deemed insufficient for the task. In the 19th century, navies frequently chartered civilian ocean liners, and from the start of the 20th century painted them gray and added a degree of armament; their speed, originally intended to minimize passage time for civilian user, proved valuable for outrunning submarines and enemy cruisers in war. {{HMT|Olympic}} even rammed and sank a U-boat during one of its wartime crossings. Individual liners capable of exceptionally high speed transited without escorts; smaller or older liners with poorer performance were protected by operating in convoys.

Most major naval powers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries provided their domestic shipping lines with subsidies to build fast ocean liners capable of conversions to auxiliary cruisers during wartime. The British government, for example, aided both Cunard and the White Star Line in constructing the liners {{RMS|Mauretania|1906|6}}, {{RMS|Aquitania}}, {{RMS|Olympic}} and RMS Britannic. However, when the vulnerability of these ships to return fire was realized during World War I most were used instead as troopships or hospital ships.

{{RMS|Queen Mary}} and {{RMS|Queen Elizabeth}} were two of the most famous converted liners of World War II. When they were fully converted, each could carry well over 10,000 troops per trip. Queen Mary holds the all-time record, with 15,740 troops on a single passage in late July 1943, transporting a staggering 765,429 military personnel during the war.

File:USNS General R. L. Howze (T-AP-134) underway at sea, in the 1950s.jpg

File:The Aiken Victory arriving in Boston with 1,958 troops from Europe, 26 July 1945.jpg troop ship conversion, arriving in Boston with 1,958 troops from Europe, 26 July 1945APPENDIX B: VICTORY TROOPSHIP CONVERSIONS [http://www.marad.dot.gov/documents/Private_Frederick_C_Murphy_HAER_Report.pdf] p. 13]]

Large numbers of troopships were employed during World War II, including 220 "Limited Capacity" Liberty ship conversions, 30 Type C4 ship-based {{Sclass|General G. O. Squier|transport|0}}, a class of 84 Victory ship conversions, and a small number of Type-C3-S-A2 ship-based dedicated transports, and 15 classes of attack transports, of which some 400 alone were built.

• The modified Liberties were capable of transporting up to 450,Live, 2013 edition, p. 6. 550,{{cite web|url=http://www.geoghegan.us/brown/JWB-walkaround.htm|title=S.S. John W. Brown Walk-around|work=geoghegan.us}} or 650Live, 2013 edition, p. 4. (sources vary) troops or prisoners-of-war. Modifications included installation of bunks stacked five deep on the forward tweendeck, additional shower and head facilities, two additional diesel-powered generators, and installation of two more Oerlikon 20-mm automatic cannons.Cooper, p. 5.[http://www.liberty-ship.com/html/brown/armament.html Project Liberty Ship: Armament Aboard SS JOHN W. BROWN] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131015041604/http://www.liberty-ship.com/html/brown/armament.html |date=2013-10-15 }}
• 30 Type C4 ship-based {{Sclass|General G. O. Squier|transport|0}}, the largest carrying over 6,000 passengers.
• A class of Victory ship-based dedicated troopship was developed late in World War II. A total of 84 such VC2-S-AP2 hull conversions was completed.{{cite web |url=http://www.marad.dot.gov/documents/Private_Frederick_C_Murphy_HAER_Report.pdf |title=HAER for Private Frederick C. Murphy |work=United States Maritime Administration |access-date=6 August 2013 |archive-date=9 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130509022344/http://www.marad.dot.gov/documents/Private_Frederick_C_Murphy_HAER_Report.pdf |url-status=dead }} "In the summer of 1945, eighty-four VC2-S-AP2 Victory ships, including the Maritime Victory, were converted into troopships by MARITIME VICTORY the U.S. Maritime Commission in preparation for an assault on the Japanese home islands. The ship made several crossings of the Atlantic Ocean and was used to repatriate American troops from Europe after World War II. pp. 1–2[http://www.ww2troopships.com/crossings/1945b.htm ww2troopships.com crossings in 1945]{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.army.mil/documents/WWII/wwii_Troopships.pdf |title=Troop Ship of World War II, April 1947, Page 356-357 |access-date=2016-12-24 |archive-date=2020-10-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030021032/https://history.army.mil/documents/WWII/wwii_Troopships.pdf |url-status=dead }}{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20170827124339/http://www.69th-infantry-division.com/pdf/USArmy69InfDiv_Vol40_No1_SepDec1986.pdf 69th infantry division, newsletter, 1986]}}[http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper4/Binghamton%20NY%20Press%20Grayscale/Binghamton%20NY%20Press%20Grayscale%201945%20pdf/Binghamton%20NY%20Press%20Grayscale%201945%20-%205720.pdf Binghamton NY Press Grayscale 1945 – Fulton History, Oct. 15, 1945]
• A class of Type C3 ship – comprising mainly C3-S-A2 and C3-S-A3 hulls – was also converted to dedicated troopships, capable of carrying 2,100 troops,Isthmian Lines ship S.S. Steel Scientist [http://www.isthmianlines.com/ships/sm_steel_scientist.htm] Troop capacity: 2156 was also developed.
• At least 15 classes of attack transport, consisting of at least 400 ships specially equipped for landing invasion forces rather than general troop movement.

The designation HMT (Her/His Majesty's Transport) would normally replace RMS (Royal Mail Ship), MV (Motor Vessel) or SS (Steamship) for ships converted to troopship duty with the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The United States used two designations: WSA for troopships operated by the War Shipping Administration using Merchant Marine crews, and USS (United States Ship) for vessels accepted into and operated by the United States Navy. Initially, troopships adapted as attack transports were designated AP; starting in 1942 keel-up attack transports received the designation APA.

"HMT" was also used, for a while, to designate "Hired Military Transport."{{cite web

|url=http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/dunera/index.html

|title=1941 Dunera Boys Hay Internment Camp Collection

|publisher=NSW Migration Heritage Centre

|access-date=8 March 2020}}{{cite web

|url=https://www.encyclopediabritannia.org/index.php/Troopship

|title=Troopship

|quote= The designation HMT (Hired Military Transport) ...}}

In the era of the Cold War, the United States designed the {{SS|United States||2}} ship so that she could easily be converted from a liner to a troopship, in case of war. More recently, {{ship||Queen Elizabeth 2}} and {{SS|Canberra||2}} were requisitioned by the Royal Navy to carry British soldiers to the Falklands War.{{cite news

|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/last-voyage-for-canberra-the-great-white-whale-of-the-falklands-1338827.html

|title=Last voyage for Canberra, the Great White Whale of the Falklands

|author=Rebecca Fowler |date=26 June 1996}} By the end of the twentieth century, nearly all long-distance personnel transfer was done by airlift in military transport aircraft.

{{Div col}}

• {{USS|Agamemnon|ID-3004|6}}
• HMT Aquitania
• {{SS|Belgenland|1914|6}}
• {{HMS|Birkenhead|1845|6}}
• {{SS|Cap Arcona|1927}}
• {{RMS|Carmania|1905|6}}
• {{SS|Dorchester}}
• {{ship|HMT|Dunera}}
• {{ship|HMT|Empire Windrush}} (ex MV Monte Rosa)
• RMS Empress of Britain
• {{SS|Great Eastern}}
• {{USS|Henry R. Mallory|ID-1280|6}}
• {{SS|Justicia}}
• {{RMS|Laconia|1921|6}}
• HMT Lancastria
• {{USS|Leviathan|ID-1326|6}} (ex Vaterland)
• HMT Mauretania (Sister ship to {{RMS|Lusitania||2}})
• {{SS|Mendi}}
• HMT Olympic (Sister ship to {{RMS|Titanic||2}})
• {{SS|Orontes}}
• {{HMS|Otranto}}
• SS Oxfordshire
• {{RMS|Queen Mary}}
• {{RMS|Queen Elizabeth}}
• {{ship|HMT|Rohna}}
• {{HMS|Tamar|1863|6}}
• {{USS|Von Steuben|ID-3017|6}} (ex Kronprinz Wilhelm)
• {{USS|West Point|AP-23|6}}
• {{HMAS|Jervis Bay|AKR 45|6}} (first large catamaran to enter naval service)

{{div col end}}

• {{slink|List of United States Navy amphibious warfare ships#Attack Transport (APA)}}
• {{slink|List of United States Navy amphibious warfare ships#Amphibious Transport (LPA)}} - APA redesignation
• {{slink|List of auxiliaries of the United States Navy#Transports (AP, T-AP)}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• James Dugan, The Great Iron Ship, 1953 (regularly reprinted) {{ISBN|0-7509-3447-6}}
• Stephen Harding, Great Liners at War, Motorbooks Int'l, Osceola, WI, US, 1997 {{ISBN|0-7603-0346-0}}
• Goron Newell, Ocean Liners of the 20th Century, Bonanza Books, US, 1963 {{ISBN|0-517-03168-X}}

{{Commons category-inline|Troop ships}}

• [http://www.britisharmedforces.org/pages/nat_troopships.htm British Armed Forces Website: Troopships]

{{Warship types of the 19th & 20th centuries}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Troopship}}

Category:Ship types