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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

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  • Boats-Ships--Support Ships
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  • World War II 1939-1945
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Craighead (AK-175)

1945-1946

A county in the state of Arkansas.

AK-175: displacement. 2,382; length 338'6"; beam 50'0"; draft 21'1"; speed 12 knots; complement 85; armament 1 3-inch, 6 20 millimeter; class Alamosa; type C1-M-AV1)

Craighead (AK-175) was launched on 28 February 1945 at Milwaukee, Wisc.,  by Froemming Brothers, Inc., under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 2148); sponsored by Mrs. W. R. Provoost; transferred to the Navy on 31 July 1945; and commissioned on 5 September 1945, Lt. Cmdr. George M. Walker, USCG, in command.

Craighead sailed from Galveston, Texas, on  25 September 1945 and arrived at Davisville, R.I., on 4 October to load cargoes earmarked for delivery to Navy Construction Battalions on the west coast. She sailed from Davisville on 25 October, arriving at San Pedro, Calif., on 15 November. After sailing on cargo duty between the California ports of Port Hueneme, San Pedro, and San Francisco, she sailed on 14 December 1945 and set course for Norfolk, Virginia; she stood in to Hampton Roads on 5 January 1946.

Craighead was decommissioned on 18 January 1946 and returned to the Maritime Commission, entering the Reserve Fleet at Lee Hall, Virginia, at 3:30 p.m. the same day. She was the first vessel to enter Unit 8 of the James River group. Her name was stricken from the Naval Register on 7 February 1946.

Transferred to Dichmann, Wright & Pugh under a general agency agreement at Lee Hall at 8:45 a.m. on 30 January 1947, the ship was purchased by the Government of Turkey [Turkiye]., the title passing to the new owners at Washington, D.C.at 4:05 p.m. on 24 February 1947.  At 4:00 p.m. on 26 February 1947, the transaction was finalized at Baltimore, Maryland.

Renamed Kastamonu, the former Navy cargo ship operated under the house flag of Deniz Nakliyati T.A.O., out of Istanbul, with her running mates Malatya (ex-Bullock, AK-165), Kars (ex-Antrim, AK-159), and Rize (ex-Hidalgo, AK-189) for over a decade and a half, plying the waters between the Mediterranean and northern Europe. Kastamonu was broken up for scrap in January 1984 at Aliaga, Turkey.

Commanding Officer                        Date Assumed Command

Lt. Cmdr. George W. Walker, USCG      5 September 1945

Robert J. Cressman

27 January 2022

Published: Thu Jan 27 09:50:40 EST 2022