USS General W. H. Gordon, a 11,828-ton (light displacement) General John Pope class troop transport, was built at Kearny, New Jersey, by the Maritime Commission to its P2-S2-R2 design. Commissioned in June 1944, for more than a year she moved troops between the United States and ports in Europe and Africa. In August 1945 she sailed from France to the Pacific, arriving in San Francisco in September 1945 after stops at Ulithi and Manila. Following two more voyages to the Western Pacific, in March 1946 the ship was decommissioned at Oakland, California, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, and transferred to the War Shipping Administration (WSA).
General W. H. Gordon was one of two ships of her class chartered by WSA to the American President Lines (APL) in mid-1946 for postwar operation as troopers, the other being General M. C. Meigs. A design designated P2-S2-R10 was prepared, probably for the full conversion of these two ships to passenger liners, but the project was not carried out. While in civilian service the ship appears to have been painted in APL colors but retained the name General W. H. Gordon. She made numerous calls at Shanghai, China, and was said to be the last American ship to leave that port before the Communists took over the city in 1949. In March 1950, at Tientsin, China, she embarked the U. S. Consul General from Shanghai, who a few days earlier had hauled down his flag, the last flying over a diplomatic post on the Chinese mainland.
In November 1951, upon expiration of APL's charter, she was taken into the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), reinstated on the Naval Vessel Register and placed in service as a civilian-manned Navy transport. USNS General W. H. Gordon (T-AP-117) departed San Francisco in December 1951 on the first of many trans-Pacific voyages in support of Korean War operations. She was modernized at Portland, Oregon, between June and December 1953, with her World War II vintage lifeboats and davits being replaced and eight new empty positions for 3"/50 twin gun mounts fitted, presumably for service as a regular Navy armed transport if required. However, the need for large troop transports declined, and General W. H. Gordon was inactive between October 1954 and March 1955. Transferred to the Atlantic in late 1956, she was laid up in the Maritime Administration's Hudson River reserve fleet in June 1957 and a year later stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.
In May 1961 the Navy reacquired General W. H. Gordon from the Maritime Administration, reinstated her on the Naval Vessel Register and returned her to MSTS service. She spent the next several years carrying troops between New York and Bremerhaven, West Germany. In 1965 the transport went to the Pacific to support the expanding Vietnam War, making numerous voyages between the U.S. West Coast and Southeast Asia. She was also credited with participating in the Vietnamese Counteroffensive and the Tet Counteroffensive between December 1967 and March 1968. USNS General W. H. Gordon was laid up in the Maritime Administration's James River Reserve Fleet in April 1970, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in March 1986 and sold for scrapping in April 1987.
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Page made 16 June 2007