GIRAFFE IX 118

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Armadillo Class Mobile Station Tanker Keel Laid 14 October 1943 at California Shipbuilding Corp., Wilmington, CA as SS SANFORD B. DOLE Acquired by the US Navy 27 October 1943 renamed GIRAFFE IX-118 Launched 11 November 1943 USS GIRAFFE IX-118 Commissioned 12 December 1943 - Decommissioned 17 June 1946 Delivered to the U.S. War Shipping Administration (WSA) 17 June 1946 Struck from the Naval Register 3 July 1946 KILEEN (Commercial Service) Acquired 3 April 1948 by Lavino Shipping Corp. 3 February 1948 Resold 1 June 1948 to Metro Petroleum Shipping Co., Inc. and renamed Converted to a dry cargo carrier in August 1949 SEAPENDER (Commercial Service) Resold to Sea Transport Corp. in October 1951 and renamed RAGNAR NAESS (Commercial Service) Resold to Naess Wejlander and Co., Inc., in August 1953 and renamed Resold to Norlo Shipping Co. Inc. September 1954 OCEAN DAPHNE (Commercial Service) Resold to Ocean Liberties, Inc., June 1955 and renamed ORIENT LAKES (Commercial Service) Renamed in 1961 Scrapped in 1967

 

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. USS Giraffe IX-118 Covers Page 1     (DATE RANGE)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Postmark Date	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Locy Type 2z

1944-12-15

The ship had no postal facilities.

 

Other Information

USS GIRAFFE earned the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal w/ 2 Campaign stars and the World War II Victory Medal during her Naval career.

NAMESAKE - A large ruminant mammal of Africa, the tallest of quadrupeds, that has a very long neck.

 

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If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

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