The SS Elwood Mead was a

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Mass ...

built for service during World War II.

Namesake

The ship was named for

Elwood Mead Elwood Mead (January 16, 1858 – January 26, 1936) was an American professor, government official, and engineer known for heading the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from 1924 until his death in 1936. During his tenure, he oversaw ...

, a professor, politician and engineer, known for heading the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

(USBR) from 1924 until his death in 1936. During his tenure, he oversaw some of the most complex projects the Bureau of Reclamation has undertaken. These included the Hoover,

Grand Coulee Grand Coulee is an ancient river bed in the U.S. state of Washington. This National Natural Landmark stretches for about 60 miles (100 km) southwest from Grand Coulee Dam to Soap Lake, being bisected by Dry Falls into the Upper and Lower ...

and Owyhee dams.

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. ...

is named in his honor.

Construction

The vessel was built by the

Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation was a World War II emergency shipyard located along the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, United States. The shipyard built nearly 600 Liberty and Victory ships between 1941 and 1945 under the Emergency Shipb ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, Oregon. It was laid down on 18 December 1943, and launched on 5 January 1944.

Sponsor

The sponsor of the ship was Mrs. Elwood Mead. Her flower girl was her granddaughter, Becky Kaiser, 7, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Edgar T. Kaiser. Mrs. Frank A. Banks,

, Washington, was a matron of honor at the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation's launching.

Service

She was operated by the operator Interocean Steamship Company of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. During the 1944 battle for the Philippines, "The ''Elwood Mead'' reported 83 general alarms in the 30-day period following her arrival at

Leyte Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has be ...

on November 19, but reported no other action."

Post-war

In 1947, SS ''Elwood Mead'' was sold to Goulandris Bros,

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...

, Greece, as part of the vast sale of shipping which constituted much of the Greek-flagged fleet in the post-war years. It was renamed SS ''Ioannis P. Goulandris'', taking the name of an 1897 freighter (operating under the name since 1910) that was lost 12 March 1942 after a collision.

Fate

Retired from service in November 1968, she was scrapped that year at Itozaki, Japan.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elwood Mead, SS Liberty ships 1944 ships World War II merchant ships of the United States