OCTORARA IX 139

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.

Octorara Class Mobile Station Tanker Built in 1921 by Southwestern Shipbuilding Co., San Pedro, California SS LA PURISMA (Commercial Service) Owned and operated by Union Oil Company of California with home port of Los Angeles and United States registry. Official Number 221691. Assigned Registry Number (ID-4647) by the US Navy (date unknown) Acquired by the War Shipping Administration (WSA), 20 April 1942, from Union Oil Co. of California, at Eureka, CA. SS TAGANROG I (Soviet Union Naval Service) Lend Lease to the Soviet Union 28 September 1943 Returned to the WSA 25 May 1944, and leased to Union Oil Co Acquired by the US Navy from MARCOM 11 September 1944 USS OCTORARA IX-139 Commissioned 11 September 1944 - Decommissioned 8 April 1946 Struck from the Naval Register 8 April 1946 Sold 28 February 1948 to Pinto Island Metal Co. Resold to Bethlehem Steel Co. for scrapping

 

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 Octorara IX-139 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

 

V-Mail Letter (incoming)

1945-03-28

The ship had no postal facilities. The return address describes as belonging to the U. S. Army Transport service, although it was a commissioned naval vessel at the time.

 

Other Information

USS OCTORARA earned the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and the Philippines Liberation Medal during her Naval career.

NAMESAKE - A creek in Pennsylvania named for an Indian word meaning running water.

Two ships of the US Navy have borne the name OCTORARA - USS Octorara (1861 Steamer) and USS Octorara IX-139.

 

---

 

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