Name USS Leedstown Commissioned 24 September 1942 Fate Sunk, 9 November 1942 Length 148 m | Acquired 6 August 1942 Struck 7 December 1942 Launched 1933 | |
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Honors and
awards 1 battle star (World War II) Builder Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company | ||
USS Leedstown (AP-73), (originally SS Santa Lucia) was a Grace Line passenger and cargo ocean liner that served as a United States Navy amphibious assault ship in World War II. She was one of four sister ships (the others being Santa Elena, Santa Paula and Santa Rosa) ordered in 1930 from the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Kearny, NJ.
Service history
Santa Lucia was acquired for the Navy in August 1942, converted for amphibious assault service and renamed USS Leedstown. She was commissioned in late September 1942 and almost immediately crossed the Atlantic to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she joined a force preparing for Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa.
Early on the evening of 8 November, shortly after putting her troops and some of her cargo ashore east of Algiers, she was attacked by Ju 88 bombers and immobilised by a torpedo in her stern. The next day three bombs only just missed her. On 9 November 1942 the German submarine U-331 hit her with two torpedoes. She sank bow first off the Algerian coast with the loss of eight men out of more than 500 aboard when abandon ship was ordered.