RACCOON IX 127
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.
Ordered as Liberty ship "J. C. W. BECKHAM" Renamed 27 October 1943 Keel Laid 7 November 1943 at Delta Shipbuilding Corp., New Orleans, LA. Launched 23 December 1943 Accepted by US Navy 31 January 1944 Sold in March 1948 to Fordom Trading Corp. for Intercontinental Shipping Corp, Tampa, FL Struck from Naval Register 31 July 1946 Sold 1968 to Taiwan breakers for scrap |
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Conflicting History Data
NavSource and
Wikipedia both say the ship's original name was "J. C. W. BECHAM".
The correct name is "J. C. W. BECKHAM".
The ship was named after John Crepps Wickliffe Beckham (August 5, 1869 – January 9, 1940), 35th governor of Kentucky and a U.S. senator from Kentucky.
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.
- USS Raccoon IX-127 Covers Page 1 (Date)
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 |
Postmark Date |
Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image |
Thumbnail Link To Cover Image |
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Locy Type 2z |
1944-04-25 |
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Censored Sailor's mail
Other Information
USS RACCOON earned the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal during her Naval career.
NAMESAKE - A small tree-climbing mammal of North America, active largely at night.
Two ships of the US Navy have borne the name RACCOON - USS Raccoon SP-506 and USS Raccoon IX-127.
The ships sponsor was Mrs. J. C. W. Becham.
Photo Album See photos of the ship and various crew members from 1945 in the Chief Machinist Mate Robert Odell Sudduth, USN Collection. The photos in this album were contributed by Robert Odell Sudduth's granddaughter, Debbie Richardson. Chief Sudduth's 40-page war diary is also found on this page.
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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