>From the “Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships,” 

(1981) Vol. 7, pp.420-421.





URANUS





	One of the more remote of the known major planets, 

discovered in 1781 by Sir William Herschel.  The planet 

itself was named for the personification of heaven.  Uranus 

was the husband (or son) of Gaea (Earth) and the father of 

Titans, Furies, the Cyclops, and giants.  Hating his 

offspring, Uranus confined them to Tartarus but was attacked 

and dethroned by his son Chronus.





AF-14

Displacement:  3,348 t. (fully loaded)

Length:  269’6”

Beam:  39’6”

Draft:  16’

Speed:  12 k.

Complement:  93

Armament:  1 4”

Class:  URANUS





	URANUS (AF-14)--built in 1933 as HELGA at Elsinore, 

near Copenhagen, Denmark, by Helsingoors Shipbuilding Works, 

for J. Lauritzen--had previously operated as CARAVELLE (1938 

to 1940) and MARIE (1940 to 1941).  She served in the fruit 

trade between her home country--Denmark--and Central 

American republics and became a ship without a country upon 

the fall of her homeland to the invading Germans in the 

spring of 1940.



	Acquired by the Navy from the United States Maritime 

Commission on 11 August 1941, MARIE soon entered the Robbins 

Drydock Co. yard at Brooklyn, N.Y., for conversion to a 

naval stores ship.  Renamed URANUS and classified AF-14, the 

ship was placed in commission at Brooklyn on 27 October 

1941, Comdr. Orrin J. Hewitt in command.  During the ship's 

subsequent shakedown period, the Japanese attacked Pearl 

Harbor; and the United States entered World War II in both 

oceans.  URANUS departed Norfolk, Va., on 20 December and 

arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Christmas Eve.  Five 

days later, she pushed on for Iceland.



	URANUS served as a floating refrigerated storage vessel 

and provided stores and provisions to American forces in 

Iceland into the summer of 1943.  During this time, her 

ports of call included Hvalfjordur, Budareyi, Seydisfjordur, 

Reykjavik, and Akureyi.  In these inhospitable and 

unpredictable northern waters, the ship ran aground off 

Akureyi while on a coastwise passage at 0129 on 10 April 

1943, coming to a stop on a sloping gravel beach which was 

reputedly once the fairway between two holes of a coastal 

golf course.  After repeated attempts, with the assistance 

of minesweeper SYMBOL (AM-123) and tug KEWAYDIN (AT-24), the 

storeship was finally refloated on the 13th.



	Following repairs, she departed Icelandic waters on 

21 August, with men and equipment from a Navy construction 

battalion on board but, due to contrary winds and currents, 

did not make port at her Davisville, R.I., destination until 

3 September.  After discharging passengers, the storeship 

proceeded on for New York, arriving three days later.  She 

then pressed south for Norfolk, where she soon commenced a 

lengthy overhaul.



	URANUS--now outfitted with a new refrigeration 

system--departed the east coast on 20 December and, five 

days later, reached a rendezvous with a convoy bound for the 

Pacific.  Clearing the Panama Canal on the first day of 

1944, the storeship headed on for Pearl Harbor on 3 January, 

proceeding independently, and reached Oahu on the 23d.



	She conducted two round-trip Pacific passages between 

San Francisco, Calif., and Pearl Harbor and Midway, before 

she sailed for Majuro in the Marshalls.  For the remainder 

of the year 1944, URANUS conducted routine cargo and stores 

carrying runs between Midway and Pearl Harbor to the west 

and San Pedro, Calif., to the east.  Overhauled at San 

Francisco in April 1945, the ship was based at this port for 

the remainder of the war in the Pacific.  She subsequently 

participated in "Magic-Carpet" operations to bring veterans 

back to the United States from the erstwhile Pacific battle 

zones.



	Decommissioned on 8 May 1946 at Norfolk, URANUS was 

delivered to the War Shipping Administration of the Maritime 

Commission on 9 May and was struck from the Navy list on 

21 May.



	Returned by the Maritime Commission to her original 

owner, J. Lauritzen, the former naval stores ship was 

renamed MARIA DAN in 1946 or 1947 and operated in the 

mercantile trade until 1960.





Transcribed by Michael Hansen

mhansen2@home.com