Alabama Victory Ships in World War II

I seem to be doing a series on this blog about ships with names connected in some way to Alabama. This post fits that group. In previous items I've discussed the 1898 USS Alabama battleship, the USS Birmingham and early flight, the effort to save the World War II USS Alabama battleship, and the SS Selma, a concrete ship. This time let's look at Victory ships named for Alabama cities. 

During World War II various United States shipyards produced 531 ships of the Victory class, cargo ships that were an improved design over the older Liberty class. Five types were constructed across two main categories; 414 were standard cargo ships and 117 were attack transports. You can find a list of the ships here and by building shipyard here.  

Many of the Victory ships were named after U.S. cities. In my research I discovered seven vessels named after Alabama locations. As you'll see I found little information on four and more on three of them. I've included the shipyards where they were built.


SS Anniston Victory Permanente Metals, Richmond, California delivered Feb 21, 1945

SS Bessemer Victory California Shipbuilding Corporation, Los Angeles delivered Aug 30, 1945. Had some commercial service in Vietnam, remained in the National Defense Reserve Fleet and berthed on the James River in Virginia until sold in the late 1980's and finally scrapped in India in 1991

SS Dothan Victory Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Portland, delivered Nov 7, 1945

SS Eufaula Victory Bethlehem Steel, Baltimore, delivered Dec 12, 1944

SS Selma Victory California Shipbuilding Corporation, Los Angeles, delivered July 29, 1944

USS Talladega Permanente Metals, Richmond, California, delivered Oct 31, 1944. The Talladega was the only attack transport I found among the Victory ships with Alabama connections. The vessel worked various areas of the Pacific during the war, including the Battle of Iwo Jima. Here's the details on that from the Wikipedia entry:

Talladega sortied from Saipan as a unit of Task Group 56.2, the Assault Group, on 16 February, and arrived off Iwo Jima on the morning of 19 February, "D-day".^[4] Four Marines pictured in Joe Rosenthal's famous flag-raising photograph debarked from Talladega to climb Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima: Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, and Mike Strank.^[2] After landing her troops, she remained off the beaches embarking combat casualties for six days before heading back toward Saipan.^[4]

His Wikipedia entry notes this information about Hayes, a Native American:

He was the subject of an article by journalist William Bradford Huie, which was adapted for the feature film The Outsider (1961), starring Tony Curtis as Hayes. The movie inspired songwriter Peter La Farge to write "The Ballad of Ira Hayes," which became popular nationwide in 1964 after being recorded by Johnny Cash. In 2006, Hayes was portrayed by Adam Beach in the World War II movie Flags of Our Fathers, directed by Clint Eastwood.

Sousley, Block and Strank are all portrayed in the 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers. William Bradford Huie, a Hartselle native, was a well-known novelist and journalist at the time. 

The Talladega also participated in the Korean and Vietnam wars and was finally scrapped in 1982. You can find many more details and a photo gallery about her here.

The city of Talladega has honored the ship with a monument on the courthouse square.

Photo taken by Rivers Langley 27 October 2011

Source: NavSource

SS Tuskegee Victory Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Portland, delivered June 5, 1945. The ship spent seven years in commercial service after the war, then returned to the National Defense Maritime Fleet in 1952. In 1958 she was refitted as a Bowditch class oceanographic survey ship for the Navy and rechristened the USNS Dutton. She served in that capacity until February 1980; the vessel was scrapped in September 2007.

.

SS Selma Victory and six other ships of the class being outfitted at the California Shipbuilding Corporation in Los Angeles in June 1944 

Source: NavSource Online

USS Talladega a Victory class attack transport ca. 1945

Source: Wikipedia

SS Tuskegee Victory after its conversion to the USNS Dutton

Source: Wikipedia 

Red Oak Victory in 2013, at that time the only operational vessel of the class

Source: Wikipedia

Alabama Brenau College in Eufaula

Given their extreme proliferation in recent decades, we might think of branch campuses of colleges and universities as a relatively modern phenomenon. Yet we can find one example in Eufaula, Alabama, circa 1905. Let's investigate.

Brenau College was founded in 1878 in Gainesville, Georgia, as an institution for the education of women. Today Brenau University remains a private institution, but men are admitted to many programs. In addition to the main campus which includes a preparatory academy for grades 9 through 12, Brenau has several satellite campus in Georgia, one in Jacksonville, Florida, and online offerings.

On one of their web site's pages, we find this paragraph: 

"Having branch campuses for Brenau in locales outside of Gainesville has always seemed to make sense from a “business” perspective. And, it has been part of the culture of the instruction for most of its 135 years. Sometime around 1905 Brenau opened “Alabama Brenau” on the campus of a failed women’s college, the Union Female College, in Eufaula, Alabama. The location never thrived and ceased operations after a few years. Brenau’s modern expansion efforts, however, would be far more successful."

The "failed" Union Female College had opened in 1854 and as noted below was advertising for students in southern newspapers as late as 1893. Except for the few other tidbits below, I've been unable to find much about this educational institution. No doubt research in Eufaula newspapers of the time would produce more information. 

Often known as academies, seminaries, or colleges, women's educational institutions were usually founded to prepare the daughters of the wealthy and middle class for household management or teaching before marriage, one of the few occupations widely approved for women in the nineteenth century. Alabama had its share of these institutions; one, Judson College, continues to operate. The University of Montevallo began as a girls' industrial school, but like many it eventually admitted men. The Union Female College in Eufaula followed the pattern of most--years, perhaps decades, of operation but eventual closure.

I have located three postcards printed during the time of "Alabama Brenau's" operation. They are included below, along with more information about the school it replaced. The postcards certainly make Alabama Brenau appear to be successful! 

Source: Wade Hall Postcard Collection, Troy University Library Special Collections via Alabama Mosaic

Source: Wade Hall Postcard Collection, Troy University Library Special Collections via Alabama Mosaic

Source: Wade Hall Postcard Collection, Troy University Library Special Collections via Alabama Mosaic

"The children of planters and wealthy townsfolk frequently had private tutors or attended private academies that offered instruction in languages, mathematics, and the arts. One such academy was the Union Female College in Eufaula, Alabama. This carved sculpture, called "Minerva" in honor of the Roman goddess of wisdom, adorned the college building from its opening in 1854 until 1920, when it was known as Alabama Brenau."

Does this mean that Alabama Brenau operated until 1920? 

Source: Alabama Mosaic

Source: J.A.B. Besson History of Eufaula [1875, p. 29]

"The Female College is most beautifully located on a high hill overlooking the city, and is a very tasteful building, costing $10,000."

Source: J.A.B. Besson, History of Eufaula [1875, p. 21]

Source:

1893 ad for Union Female College in Eufaula, AL; from The Durham (NC) Daily Globe, September 12, 1893, p. 3. 

Source: Library of America, Chronicling America

According to this web site, the "delicate" fence that once surrounded Union Female College is now located at East Fairview Cemetery in Eufaula, a Jewish cemetery. 

Finding Alabama in Oklahoma

Recently Dianne and I helped our daughter Becca and son-in-law Matt move from Tuscaloosa to Edmond, Oklahoma, where he has accepted a faculty position at the University of Central Oklahoma. Matt and his father took the U-Haul; Dianne and his mother drove one of their cars; and Becca and I drove the other one, the one with their two dogs. We left Tuscaloosa around 6:30 am and arrived in Edmond about 13 hours later. 

As we made our way across Oklahoma on I-40, Becca and I noticed something familiar. We passed an exit for "Eufaula." Some miles further on we passed an exit for "Wetumpka." This Twilight Zone feeling quickly passed as we realized why there are towns in Oklahoma with names so familiar to us in Alabama.

Those Alabama towns of Eufaula and Wetumpka carry names associated with settlements of various Muscogee/Creek tribes in the state. Several towns by those names were identified by early European traders and settlers in the area. For an in-depth look at such matters, see Amos J. Wright, Jr.'s 2003 book, Historic Indian Towns in Alabama, 1540-1838.

In the 1830's the Creeks---along with Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Seminoles---were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to the Indian Territory in the west. Naturally, some of their town names went with them. Another such name was Tuskegee, now an Oklahoma ghost town. 

Below are three maps. The first one shows the locations of the two towns south of I-40. Downtown Wetumka [without the P] is shown on the second map. There we can see some specifics that would not be out of place in its Alabama counterpart: a Diary Queen, a Dollar General, Wetumka Elementary and High Schools. Oh, wait---that Cowkickers Smokin Barbeque gives it away. You seldom see a barbeque place in Alabama that doesn't use Bar-B-Que in it's name. 

If you look at the water near Eufaula on the third map, you'll see Lake Eufaula there in the middle of the Canadian River. It's a reservoir created by a dam. Gee, isn't there one of those in Alabama, too?

These names are not limited to Alabama and Oklahoma. There is an unincorporated Wetumpka in Florida. A town of Tuskegee in Tennessee associated with the Cherokee and the birthplace of Sequoyah was covered by water in the 1970's after the construction of Tellico Dam. Alabama actually had several settlements by that name; see the book cited above. 

On our trip we also passed an exit for "Prague." And yes, the town was settled in the early 1890's by--wait for it--Czech immigrants.