Does anyone here have any information about the US Army Freight Boats (F-Boats) that operated in the Pacific during the war? Information such as crew complements, ports of call, etc. I'm not referring to the larger FS ships (Freight and Supply), but rather the 99' freight boats. I know most Army ships were manned by the Coast Guard and, to a lesser extent, the Navy from 1943. I attached a photo of an F-boat below.
I have U. S. Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II, by David H. Grover. The Biblio refers to: The Army's Cargo Fleet in World War II, by Harold Larson and several other books that look promising. I'll look at the Grover book later today.
Not a lot of information in Grover on this. I suggest you contact the Center of Military History for deployments and the builders, or whoever holds the records for the builders for the fine points.
Here is a list of the F-Boats(& FS-Boats) with builders. Not much written about them or their histories, indeed, not much is known of their final fates. US Army Coastal Freighters F FS
Yeah and thanks to a few Hearty souls who make sure this stuff is recorded for posterity you can find little snippets like this; From HyperWar page 247-248 HyperWar: At Close Quarters [Part IV] "Squadrons and tenders arriving from the Solomons and the United States staged through Dreger Harbor. Squadron 6, which arrived at Dreger on May 20, was decommissioned on May 29, and its eight boats were distributed among Squadrons 8, 9, 10, and 25, which had suffered operational losses. As the supply line lengthened and the number of boats increased, it became imperative to acquire more cargo ships to carry spare parts and other special PT equipment between bases. At the time of the Aitape and Hollandia landings, Commander Bowling obtained from the Sixth Army the assignment of four F-ships, little freighters built on the lines of a Dutch wooden shoe, each of which had a capacity of about 100 tons. For the rest of the war these little ships plied back and forth between PT bases, making a maximum speed of 8 knots. With the expansion of the task group, the staff grew, and Portunus, with its quonset hut on deck, became more and more congested. The arrival of new tenders made it possible to convert Hilo, which had never been entirely adequate as a tender, to a command ship. Shops and repair equipment were removed and the space was used for staff offices. Commander Bowling shifted his pennant to Hilo on June 20, and early in July moved the base of his command from Dreger Harbor to Mios Woendi, arriving there in Hilo on the 9th." I know it ain't much but one small thing often leads to another.
Just a little endeavor some foreseeing folks thought might be a good idea to have. It's a lot like playing Indiana Jones, while searching for the Jewell you find the really important stuff. Why just today I found an interesting tidbit about some P47's coming in to support a few PT boats that requested their presence. Now since the Uncles Unit was stationed near the same area at the time I must assume, well I'm gonna assume, it was his group. Just little things that help fill in the blanks. Sure would like to thank those guys who started HyperWar and kept it going. And is keeping it going. Be Well my friend
Thanks. I did my share at Hyperwar with the mindset that somebody somewhere might find the spacing of 8.5" foundation bolts on reduction gear housings of interest. Kept me from going sane when I did a file with 77,000+ table cells.