Posted by Dennis Porterfield on March 22, 2014, 5:56 pm
My Father Vance Porterfield was an Armed Guard On the SS Philip Schuyler. I think this is the ship he was on that was sunk by a Kamikaze. Does anyone have information about this ship
Re: SS Philip Schuyler
Posted by Ron Carlson on March 22, 2014, 9:18 pm, in reply to "SS Philip Schuyler"
Dennis,
From what I can find, SS PHILIP SCHUYLER survived the war. The ship was constructed in 136 days between November 1941 (note: before the war began for the U.S.) and April 1942 by the Oregon Shipbuilding Company, Portland, OR. After the war she was likely placed in the reserve fleet ("mothballed") and probably never sailed again until being scrapped in New Orleans in 1967. See http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergencylarge/wwtwo/koregon.htm (scroll to hull no. 184) and http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsP.html (scroll to the name of the ship).
You may wish to obtain your father's complete military service record, which presumably would give his shipboard assignments. If you find he was aboard other ships you could research them as well, or come back here for questions. See http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html, particularly section II.A.1 - Records of Individuals - U.S. Military. You will have to contact the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO and provide as much identifying information as possible.
If you're interested in a photograph of PHILIP SCHUYLER or any other ship, see this list of sources of photographs of World War II-era merchant ships: http://www.usmm.org/photosource.html. PHILIP SCHUYLER was a Liberty ship, so Mr. Hultgren, first name on the list, would be your best bet, in that his collection concentrates on Liberty ships. I know enough about his collection to know that he apparently has an image of PHILIP SCHUYLER. Mr. Hultgren has no e-mail or internet presence so send him an old-fashioned letter. He is quite elderly but at last report was still actively managing his collection. I understand he charges $10 for an 8x10 B&W copy.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
Re: SS Philip Schuyler
Posted by Dennis Porterfield on March 24, 2014, 5:03 pm, in reply to "Re: SS Philip Schuyler"
Ron I really appreciate the information and this is a great website. I have learned so much that I didn't know about the Armed Guards in the Merchant Marines. My Dad, for some reason didn't talk much about the War.