Norma (AK-86) explained
Norma (AK-86)[1] was never commissioned and thus never bore the USS designation.
[2] Norma is the name of constellation.
The ship was built as a Maritime Commission type N3-M-A1 cargo vessel at Penn-Jersey Shipbuilding Corp. intended for naval and Lend Lease service as M.C. hull 649 assigned the name MV Summer Pierce before being laid down on 3 December 1943. The ship was renamed and designated Norma (AK-86), 30 October 1942 intended as an for the U.S. Navy. Norma was delivered to the Navy on 6 June 1944 and transferred to the U.S. Army on the same day.[3] Norma was renamed Henry Wright Hurley[4] by the Army and began conversion into a U.S. Army Engineer Port Repair ship for service with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[5]
Army Port Repair Ship
The Army converted the ship into one of ten Engineer Port Repair ships for use by the Army Engineers in clearing war damaged ports. These ships were extensively modified with a distinctive appearance the result of heavy lift bow horns with a forty ton lift capacity.[6] The converted ship saw little or no service as intended as it was one of the conversions completed in 1945.
Final disposition
The ship was returned to the Maritime Administration 8 August 1947 and sent into the National Defense Reserve Fleet, Suisun Bay, Benicia, California. On 31 March 1965 Henry Wright Hurley was sold to Zidell Explorations, Inc., Portland, Oregon for scrapping.
External links
Notes and References
- Only of the ten-ship Enceladus-class, composed of Maritime Commission N3-M-A1` type small cargo vessels, saw significant naval service. The other nine, except, were transferred within months or days of shipyard delivery from the Navy to the Army. Hydra was transferred to Army shortly after commissioning and trials. The Navy had assumed administration of the contracts for these ships from the Maritime Commission on 1 January 1943 during or before construction so most were only administratively Navy, including names and numbers, during construction.
- Web site: Ship Naming in the United States Navy . Naval History & Heritage Command . Naval History & Heritage Command . 17 February 2012.
- Norma . 17 February 2012.
- Web site: USAPR Henry Wright Hurley ex Norma (AK-86) . NavSource Online . 17 February 2012.
- Book: Grover, David . U.S. Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II . . 1987 . 133–137 . 0-87021-766-6.)
- Book: Coll, Blanche D. . United States Army in World War II - The Corps of Engineers: Troops and Equipment - Chapter XVII - Preparing to Reconstruct Ports . Jean E. Keith . Herbert H. Rosenthal . 1958 . U.S. Army Center Of Military History . 391–416 . 4 January 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120424224234/http://140.194.76.129/publications/misc/un21/toc.htm . 24 April 2012 . dead .
