My father, Richard C."Dick" Gibbens, from North Dakota, served on the SS Asa Gray as a gunner for the Armed Guard during WW II. Would appreciate any information anyone may have about the ship, shipmates, etc. Thanks so much!! - Greg Gibbens
very much appreciate this info. The request was made by my brother Greg. I was born in 1940 & remember Dad talking about being in Cuba, & also how well the servicemen were treated in New York during the war. I never learned when he left the Armed Guard, but he spent the remainder of the war on the escort carrier USS Rendova. Thanks again.
I have found some information for you that may be of interest.
The SS ASA GRAY was a Liberty ship built by the New England Shipbuilding Company in Portland, Maine. Her keel was laid March 8, 1943, she was launched May 3, 1943, and she was delivered for service May 17, 1943, 70 days after keel-laying. She was scrapped in 1967 in Kearny, NJ. See http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergency/wwtwo/newengland.htm
The ASA GRAY apparently had a fairly uneventful wartime career, as I can find no mention of unusual events or experiences that involved the ship. She may have sailed in commercial service after the war, as I found that a photograph of the ship recently sold on eBay, with the picture clearly showing her in a post-war configuration, considering her paint job and the absence of guns. See http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110265450885.
Asa Gray (1810-1888), for whom the ship was named, was a prominent U.S. scientist and a professor of botany at Harvard. He was one of the original members and founders of the National Academy of Sciences in 1863. The great majority of Liberty ships were named after famous (or semi-famous or downright obscure) figures in U.S. history.
On the website ConvoyWeb (http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html) I found many records for the ASA GRAY sailing in various convoys in 1943-1945, a total of at least 28 convoys. Most were between Hampton Roads (i.e., Norfolk, Virginia) and points in the Mediterranean Sea and return, or from place to place within the Mediterranean. I cannot say whether ConvoyWeb has a complete record of the ASA GRAY’s convoy activities.
Searching Ancestry.com I found two records of your father arriving in New York City as part of the Naval Armed Guard crew aboard the ASA GRAY, one on December 22, 1944, arriving from Oran, Algeria, the other on March 26, 1945, arriving from Nuevitas, Cuba. These two arrivals may have been consecutive voyages because the Armed Guard crews in both cases include many of the same men. The December 1944 arrival was probably the end of convoy GUS-60 from Oran (departed December 3, 1944) to New York via Hampton Roads, as recorded on ConvoyWeb. Convoy GUS-60 had no fewer than 121 merchant vessels sailing together.
Your father is listed as Richard C. Gibbens, seaman 1st class, service number 961-26-80. His shipmates for the December 1944 arrival in New York were as follows:
Anspach, John William Arbitell, John A. Balinski, Adrian Joseph Barrett, Thomas William Brattain, Raymond F. Brendel, Frank Bryson, Everett Emerson Butler, Browder Franklin Caron, Arthur Joseph Carrasco, Joseph Cartwright, Clarence M. Caruso, Robert Cobb, John K., Jr. Fischer, Francis Xavier Frederick, Donald J. Frysinger, James Bernard Galati, Philip L. Gillespie, John Carlos Gray, William A. [Ensign] Groener, Arnold George Haller, Roy E. Hambridge, Robert L. Judkins, Leland D. [Lt. (j.g.)] Kennedy, James Augustus Kostelnik, John Liberali, Leo H. Miller, Wilbur Grant Moir, Douglas O’Connor, Thomas Gerald Reese, Edward Charles Robinson, Ernest Howard Sale, Leo H. Sippie, Leon Martin Smith, Willie Eugene Smith, Ralph Olander Strother, Lowell Thomson, Thomas Neal Thomson, Raymond Joseph Underwood, Joseph P. Worchester, Richard L. [Ensign]
For the March 1945 arrival there were these additional shipmates, replacing a like number of men from the December arrival:
Antoniello, Anthony P. Anger, Robert B. Baldridge, Clyde C. Bermingham, Harry W. Cain, William J., Jr. Cassidy, Thurber W. Castiglione, Joseph J. Creamer, Roman H., Sr. Frankosky, John J. Gamble, John R. Laman, Luther Locke, Leroy P. McCoy, John L. Pelot, Edmund E. Robbins, Ralph T. Sonnenberg, Arthur J.
I have no idea whether any of these men are still living, nor do I have contact information for any of them. A number of those with more unusual names appear in the Social Security Death Index (http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/).
The Armed Guard crews for the two voyages, totaling about 40 men in each case, are quite large for a crew assigned to a Liberty ship. A more typical size would be about 25-28 men. A likely explanation for the larger crew size is that the ASA GRAY was converted to carry troops as well as cargo, as many as 550 soldiers. A troop-carrying Liberty would carry more defensive guns, therefore require a much larger Armed Guard crew.
I hope this information is useful.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard website www.armed-guard.com