T-AKL 16

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.

Small Freighter FS-233 (design 330D) Keel Laid (date unknown) FS-233 (U.S. Army) Delivered to the US Army circa 1944-45 Assigned to the US Army Transportation Command (USAT) Acquired by the US Navy on March 1 1950 USNS T-AKL-16 Designated & Placed in Service July 1 1950 Out of service in August 1953 and laid up Struck from the Naval Register in 1959 MARTHA ANNE (Commercial Service) Sold in 1959 and renamed Owned and operated by Cia de Nav. Fruco S.A. and registered in Panama KING TOWER (Commercial Service) Sold 1983-1984 to King Line S.A. of Panama Fate Unknown

 

Conflicting History Data

1. NavSource says: "Transferred from the US Army Transportation Command (USAT) to the US Navy Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS), 1 July 1950" while
   U.S. Merchant Marine website and Shipscribe lists FS-233 as transferred to Military Sea Transport Service from Army Transportation Service on March 1, 1950.
   
   
2. Shipscribe says the ship was broken up in Singapore in 1985. Lloyd's Casualty Return 1985 has an entry on page 58 showing a ship named KING TOWER was broken up in Singapore - but it is a different KING TOWER. The one listed in Lloyd's was KING TOWER (ex Konini), built in 1957, owned by King Line (Pte) Ltd. and registered in Singapore.
   Lloyd's Register of Shipping 1988 still has an entry for KING TOWER (ex Martha Anne).

 

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. Covers Page 1     (1950)

 

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	Date From to Date To	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

US Army Postal Service Machine Cancel

1950-07-07

N/A

T-AKL-16. Posted 6 days after transfer to US Navy custody.

 

Other Information

This section lists any other information that might be relevant to this ship.

 

---

 

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.

 

---

Copyright 2024 Naval Cover Museum