CYTHERA PY 31

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.

Patrol Yacht Built 1931 in Germany as ARGOSY Purchased by U.S. Navy 14 July 1942 USS CYTHERA PY-31 Commissioned 26 October 1942 - Decommissioned 3 January 1944 CYTHERA PY-31 Placed In Service 3 January 1944 - Out of Service 14 March 1946 Transferred to Maritime Commission 6 November 1946 Sold in 1946 and renamed ABRIL Purchased and converted into a Blockade Runner named BEN HECHT Used for bringing refugees to then British controlled Palestine Intercepted on the high seas 12 March 1946 by "HMS CHIEFTAN R-32" Towed into Haifa and turned over to Israeli Forces INS MAOZ K-24 (Israeli Naval Service) Converted to Gunship September 1948 and renamed Retired 1956 after the Suez/Sinai campaign Fate unknown

 

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 Cythera PY-31 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 2az

c 1943

Censored. From the John Hardies collection

 

Locy Type 2z

1945-04-01

N/A

Censored. This cancel is not identified with the ship, so the cover was posted either on another ship or ashore.

 

Other Information

NAMESAKE - The ancient name of Cerigo, one of the Ionian Islands

 

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