MARATHON APA 200
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.
Keel Laid July 4 1944 - Launched October 7 1944 Acquired by U.S. Navy October 27 1944 |
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.
- Covers Page 1 (1945)
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.
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Postmark Type |
Date From to Date To |
Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image |
Thumbnail Link To Cover Image |
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Locy Type |
c1945 |
 |
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HIRO WAN JAPAN marking on the cover stems from their duty in the "Guinea Pig Squadron".
Other Information
Guinea Pig Squadron - Using battered ships that had been damaged by war and storms, they would ply Japanese waters seeking deadly American mines menacing U. S. vessels. These mines were were a special type of pressure mine. They had been sowed by the B-29’s under Navy mine-layer direction while the war was at its height. The mines were something in the form of depth charges that would rest on the bottom of harbors and in shipping lanes until a ship of 8,000 or 10,000 tons passed over them, rending the disturbing ship to shreds and probably the crew with it. The three ships of the squadron are the USS Marathon, the SS Pratt Victory and the SS Joseph Holt. The Marathon is a former troop transport, the other two are freighters taken over by the Navy from the War Shipping Administration.
MARATHON received one battle star for World War II service
Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons...
the Combat Action Ribbon, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (w/ 1 Battle star), the World War II Victory Medal and the Navy Occupation Service Medal (with Asia clasp) during her Naval career.
NAMESAKE - A county in central Wisconsin.
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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