IX SHIPS: The Navy's Forgotten Flotilla

Sea Classics, Aug 2007 by Grover, David B

Given strange designations which masked their true importance, a fleet of ex-merchant tankers was forward-based at newly occupied Pacific islands to ensure a plenitude of bunker oil for the fighting fleets

In 1944 in the mid-Pacific the Navy created a new logistics structure that Hwould provide flexibility in fueling the fleet. However, years later it is difficult for historians, as well as for the men who sailed in those ships, to understand an important semantic dimension ofthat move.

The event was the acquisition, designation, and naming/ numbering of a group of vintage tankers to serve as stationship fuel supply vessels. The 30 ships so acquired were all fully operational ex-merchant tankers, but for reasons which remain unclear were brought into the Navy as unclassified vessels and assigned numbers in the list of such vessels under the designation of EX.

The IX or "unclassified" category was reportedly borrowed from a Navy Department paperwork management or filing system. It had been added to the Navy's ship designation system only in 1941 to accommodate those miscellaneous misfits that did not clearly belong in another classification, but were nevertheless deemed to be useful to the day-to-day work or reputation of the service. A few famous old vessels were given that designation almost as emeritus status, e.g., the battleships Iowa, Kearsorge, and Oregon. Also in the category were a few venerable vessels used in training, and several historical relics, such as the Constellation and Constitution.

However, in many cases, the 200-odd ships in that group were just that - odd. Their strangeness was reflected in the presence in the class of such vessels as a Chinese junk, a large variety of schooner-rigged sailboats, a few concrete barges, some wooden-hulled steam and motor vessels, converted minesweepers and landing craft, and a number of small vessels utilized as district craft.

New vessels were also given the IX designation, including about a dozen and a half converted Liberty ship tankers to be used for storage of oil and another dozen Liberty ships to be used as dry storage ships. But the bulk of the ships with this designator of "unclassified" were older vessels, including the 30 older tankers which constituted the largest group, in both hull size and number, under the IX designation.

The Navy's purpose in collecting this curious assortment of tankers was to furnish storage capabilities at a number of island bases in the western Pacific. The ships used for this purpose would provide a means of fueling a broader variety of vessels than underway replenishment could serve. These fuel ships changed locations occasionally when the combat zones shifted farther to the west as the war progressed. Typically, these ships would stay in one location for several months before moving on. They were capable of fueling a number of ships, totaling perhaps as many as a hundred in a month. Every week or so they had their own cargo tanks filled by transport oilers or merchant tankers which made long voyages from such oil-rich locations as the Persian Gulf.

In their rear echelon roles, these station-ship tankers fulfilled a very important function, but they rarely received any recognition for the contribution they made to winning the war. Life aboard such vessels was generally a combination of boredom and hard physical work; in fact, the constant rigging and re-rigging of cargo hoses, mooring lines, and fenders as ships came alongside could become exhausting work. However, it often went unnoticed by war correspondents and the general public. When the war was over, the film Mr. Roberts provided a needed reminder of the work of supply-line sailors on freighters anchored in the backwaters of the war, but tankers were still largely forgotten.

One of the problems in restoring these older tankers to their rightful place in the history of the war is the rather negative view of merchant tankers held by much of the maritime history establishment. The Steamship Historical Society of America and a number of the regional maritime historical societies and museums often take a rather "clubby" view of the world of ships. Within this view, tankers do not share in the romance and glory assigned to passenger vessels and freighters. To these purists, tankers are too often regarded as grubby denizens of the back channels of our ports, necessary evils at best.

Public images may also be negative, perhaps more so today than during WWII. Tankers are perceived as sinister because they can with a single spark become blazing infernos. In recent years they have also been perceived as gross polluters, and their civilian owners - Exxon, Shell, BP, etc. -are high on the list of "love to hate" corporations.

Even among the military establishment tankships face a kind of discrimination. Perceived as being highly dangerous, they are often treated like ammunition ships and assigned to the most distant anchorages in a harbor, as far away as possible from other ships. The liberty boats of these ships spend much of their time hauling impatient sailors great distances to and from their ships.