Lake Superior (ID No. 2995)
1918-1919
1942-1945
(Steamer: displacement 4,300; length 261'; beam 43'6"; draft 18'6"; speed 10 knots; complement 64; armament 1 5-inch, 1 3-inch)
The largest, northernmost, and westernmost lake of the five Great Lakes of North America.
Lake Superior, a mine cargo ship, was launched under USSB contract as War Bayonet 3 October 1917 by Toledo Shipbuilding Co., Toledo, Ohio; acquired by the Navy 12 December 1917; and commissioned as Lake Superior 30 January 1918 at New York, Lt. Comdr. Hans L. Mortensen, USNRF, in command.
Assigned to NOTS, Lake Superior steamed to Bermuda with a cargo of gasoline 16 to 20 February before sailing to Norfolk 1 to 5 March. After a coaling run to Halifax, Nova Scotia and back 9 to 25 March, she loaded mines and military supplies for transportation to Europe. Departing Norfolk 10 May, she reached Oban, Scotland the 28th; steamed to Klye and Clyde, Scotland; then returned from Clyde to Norfolk 7 to 27 June. Between 18 July and 6 December, she made two more cargo runs from Norfolk to Scottish ports, carrying general supplies and mines.
Resuming collier service out of Norfolk, Lake Superior carried coal on runs from Norfolk to Bermuda, Key West, and Pensacola from 14 December until 20 February 1919. Between 6 March and 7 April she sailed to West Indian ports, transporting Marine Corps aviation equipment. And from 12 April to 21 July she hauled coal and general cargo along the Atlantic coast from Guantanamo Bay to Melville, R.I. Returning to Norfolk from New York 21 July, Lake Superior decommissioned 31 July and was returned to USSB the same day. In 1926 she was sold to the Pacific Spruce Corp. of Delaware and operated out of Newport, Oreg., as C. D. Johnston III. In 1932, the Times-Mirror Company of Los Angeles, purchased the ship to transport newsprint. Two years later, C.D. Johnston III was sold to the Shafer Brothers Steamship Line of San Francisco and re-named Anna Shafer.
(AG-46: displacement 4,500; length 261'0"; beam 43'6"; draft 18'8"; speed 9 knots; complement 45; armament 1 3-inch, 3 20 millimeter)
A small island located just off the northwestern shore of Palawan Island in the Philippine Archipelago.
Anna Shafer, a cargo ship built in 1917 at Toledo, Ohio, by the Toledo Shipbuilding Co., was acquired by the War Shipping Administration on 10 July 1942 at San Pedro, Calif. The Navy acquired the ship from the WSA on 16 October 1942. Six days later the ship was re-named Tululran and designated AG-46. She completed conversion at the General Engineering & Drydock Co., Alameda, Calif., on 8 December 1942; and commissioned at San Francisco on 11 December 1942, Lt. F. G. Isbell, USNR, in command.
Three days later, Tuluran joined the Pacific Fleet Service Force. On Christmas Eve, the ship stood out of San Francisco, bound for the South Pacific. After stopping at Pearl Harbor from 6 January to 22 February 1943, Tuluran continued on to Samoa, arriving in Tutuila on the 28th. She operated at Samoa for the next nine months before departing Tutuila on 26 November bound for the United States. After a one-day stop at Pearl Harbor on 11 December, she continued on to San Diego, Calif., where she arrived on 23 December. For the next four months, Tuluran underwent an extensive overhaul.
On 19 April 1944, Tuluran departed the west coast to return to the South Pacific and duty shuttling cargo between bases in the rear areas of the war zone. She stopped at Pearl Harbor from 29 April to 2 May and returned to Tutuila on 13 May. This time, however, she only remained overnight and, the following day, resumed her voyage. The cargo ship reached the New Hebrides Islands on the 21st. Eight days later, Tuluran departed Espiritu Santo to deliver cargo to the southern Solomons. She reached Guadalcanal on 5 June and remained there until the 20th when she headed back to the New Hebrides, arriving at Espiritu Santo on 3 July. She remained until early August when she moved to the New Guinea area where she operated from 17 August until the beginning of October, when she steamed via Espiritu Santo to the Solomons. After serving at Guadalcanal until mid-November, the ship made her first voyage to the Central Pacific.
Following visits to Saipan in the Mariana Islands and to Peleliu in the Palaus, she returned to the southwestern Pacific in mid-December. She visited the Russell Island subgroup in the Solomons from 17 to 19 December and spent a month at Noumea, New Caledonia, from 24 December 1944 to 24 January 1945, before returning to Espiritu Santo on the 27th. She departed the New Hebrides once more on 19 February and headed back to the Solomon Islands, where she operated for the next two months. During that tour of duty, she returned to Guadalcanal first and then visited the Treasury subgroup, Bougainville, the Green Islands, and the Russells again as well as making a side trip to Emirau Island.
On 3 April, the cargo ship departed the Russell subgroup and headed back to the Central Pacific. For the remainder of the war, Tuluran carried cargo between the American bases and anchorages established at various atolls in the Marshalls, Carolines, and Marianas. Her itinerary over the last five months of the war included Eniwetok, Ulithi, Peleliu, Guam, and Saipan. On 8 August, a week before the cessation of hostilities, Tuluan stood out of Eniwetok bound for Hawaii. Japan capitulated a week before the ship arrived in Pearl Harbor. Tuluran spent three days at Oahu and then continued her voyage east on 24 August.
On 3 September, she entered San Francisco; and, on 20 December 1945, Tuluran was decommissioned. She was stripped of usable materiel at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 8 January 1946, and the Commandant, 12th Naval District, turned her over to the Maritime Commission for final disposition on 1 July 1946. On 26 December, she was sold to the American Iron & Metal Co. and subsequently scrapped.
