Launched October 10, 1943 at Richmond California; sponsored by Mrs. Mamie M. McHugh; acquired by the Navy on 29 March 1944; placed in ferry commission on 1 April 1944 for transfer to Portland, Oregon, for conversion to a transport by Kaiser Co., Inc., Vancouver, Washington; decommissioned on 10 April 1944; and commissioned on 8 May 1944 at Portland, Captain James L. Wyatt in command.

Displacement

·       9,950 ton empty

·       17,250 ton at capacity

Length 522' 10"

Beam 71' 6"

Draft 26' 6"

Speed 16.5 knots

Officers 228

Enlisted 3,595

Cargo Capacity 1,900 DWT

Non-refrigerated 70,000 cu. ft.

Armament

·       Four single 5"/38 caliber dual purpose gun mounts

·       Four twin 1.1" gun mounts (replaced by four twin 40mm AA gun mounts)

·       Fifteen twin 20mm AA gun mounts

Fuel Capacity NSFO 13,300 barrels

Propulsion

·       one Westinghouse geared turbine

·       two Babcock and Wilcox header-type boilers, 465psi 765°

·       double Westinghouse Main Reduction Gears

·       three turbo-drive 400Kw 240V D.C. Ship's Service Generators

·       single propeller, 9,000 horsepower

Following shakedown off San Diego, General Harry Taylor sailed from San Francisco on 23 June 1944 with troop reinforcements for Milne Bay, New Guinea. After returning to San Francisco on 3 August with veterans of the Guadalcanal campaign embarked, she continued transport voyages between San Francisco and island bases in the western Pacific.

During the next 10 months, she steamed to New Guinea, the Solomons, New Caledonia, the Marianas, the New Hebrides, the Palaus, and the Philippines, carrying troops and supplies, until 29 June 1945 when she departed San Francisco for duty in the Atlantic.

With the European war over, General Harry Taylor made two "Magic Carpet" voyages to Marseilles and back, carrying returning veterans of the fighting in that theater. Next she sailed twice to Karachi, India, via the Suez Canal. Returning to New York on January 3, 1946, the transport then began the first of four voyages to Bremerhaven, Germany, and Le Havre, France. July 3, 1946 was renamed USAT General Harry Taylor for the U.S. Army Transport Service. Out of service: 1 March 1950

Her early duties consisted mainly of carrying troops, dependents, and large numbers of European refugees. From 1949 to 1952, the ship made about 39 trips ferrying displaced persons (DPs) from Germany to the United States. The General Taylor was used to ferry nearly 40,000 DPs to the United States.

In 1957, she took part in the Hungarian Relief program, transporting several thousand refugees of the short-lived Hungarian Revolution to Australia. She was placed in ready reserve on 19 September 1957; stricken from the Naval Register on 10 July 1958 and transferred back to the Maritime Administration the same day. She was placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Beaumont, Texas.

Missile range instrumentation ship General Harry Taylor was then transferred to the U.S. Air Force on 15 July 1961 and was renamed USAFS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg on 11 June 1963.

In 1963 tracked the U.S. space program's launches off Cape Canaveral. It also served in the Pacific monitoring U.S. defense missile test launches and eavesdropped on Russian missile launches during the Cold War.

On 1 July 1964, General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was acquired by the Navy and designated T-AGM-10, as a missile range instrumentation ship, one of ten such ships transferred from the Commander, Air Force Eastern Test Range, to MSTS. in 1974 the ship commanded by Captain Anderson deployed to Dakar, Senegal, to participate in the Global Atmospheric Research Experiment.

"Equipped with extremely accurate and discriminating radar and telemetry equipment," she tracked and analyzed "re-entry bodies in the terminal phase of ballistic missile test flights," carrying out those missile and spacecraft tracking duties in both Atlantic and Pacific waters until her retirement in 1983.

Port Canaveral, Fla., was the last active-duty homeport beginning in 1976.She was ultimately stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 29 April 1993.

In 1998, some scenes of the horror/sci-fi film Virus were filmed aboard the ex-General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. The ship substituted for a Russian vessel known as the Akademik Vladislav Volkov, and some of the Cyrillic lettering applied for the film is still visible on the hull today.

The ship was transferred to the Maritime Administration on 1 May 1999. Her projected transfer to the state of Florida, for use as an artificial reef, received approval on 13 February 2007. The sinking was originally set to take place on 15 May 2008 but was postponed because the ship was placed under "Federal Arrest" by a US Federal Court for failure to pay shipyard fees related to the clean-up and preparation for the sinking. It was later ordered sold at auction to pay the shipyard fees. A group of banks and financiers from Key West was able to arrange to pay the fees and title of the ship was transferred to the city of Key West.

On 12 April 2009, the Vandenberg left the shipyard and began the long tow to Key West. On 22 April 2009 it arrived in the Key West Harbor where it was moored at the East Quay Pier. The sinking took place Wednesday, 27 May 2009.

At 24°27' N, 81°44' W. Approximately seven miles south of Key West International Airport in nearly 150 feet of water in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

The site was chosen 10 years ago, with input from interested parties. Permitting was required from 18 different agencies. More than 130 dives were conducted to survey the site. It is hard barren bottom with no coral and no submerged cultural resources (historic wrecks).

She is the largest artificial reef in the world, next to the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany.

Before arriving in Key West April 22, 2009, the ship had undergone months of inspections and about 75,000 man-hours worth of cleanup in two Norfolk, Va. shipyards to remove contaminants that were deemed potential hazards to the marine environment, and were required by nearly 18 different local, state and federal agencies involved to receive the necessary federal and state permits to sink the ship in the sanctuary.

Pollutants removed included 81 bags of asbestos, 193 tons of materials that contained potentially carcinogenic substances, 46 tons of floatable refuse, 300 pounds of mercury-containing materials and 184 55-gallon drums of paint chips.

Explosive cutting charges were detonated to open holes in the lower deck. Marine engineers who had predicted the ship would sink in less then three minutes were correct: Vandenberg slipped beneath the surface in 1 minute, 45 seconds, landing upright on the bottom.

Click here to watch the ship sink in real time (use browser back function to return)

The former military troop transport and former missile-tracking ship was chosen from about 400 decommissioned military ships rusting away in "Ghost Fleets" across the country.

General Harry Taylor

Harry Taylor was born June 26, 1862 in Tilton, NH, and upon graduation from the Military Academy in 1884, Joined the Corps of Engineers. In the years that followed, Taylor served in the field on various projects, including East Coast defenses and the Columbia River project. By 1916 he was Assistant Chief of Engineers in charge of the River and Harbor Division. At the start of America's participation in World War I he sailed for France as Chief Engineer Officer, American Expeditionary Force. In this capacity he supervised the construction of railways, barracks, wharves, and shelters throughout France. Awarded the Distinguished Service Medal Taylor returned to Washington and was named Major General, Chief of Engineers, June 19, 1924. He retired in 1926 and died January 27, 1930 in Washington, D.C.