Although the early focus of the U.S. Maritime Commission’s shipbuilding efforts had been dry cargo ships, by early winter in 1941, German U-boats and commerce raiders were exacting a heavy toll on Allied tankers. These mounting losses lead the agency to commission a tanker, based on a standard private design already under construction at Sun Shipbuilding Company.  The design was simple enough that shipyards could employ some of the same mass-production techniques that they were using to build the “Liberty” dry cargo ships.

These tankers, capable of 14.5 knots, were 523 feet long with a deadweight capacity of 16,735 tons, or 141,200 barrels of oil. The vessels were turbo-electric; a steam engine drove a generator that powered a motor turning the vessels’ single propeller.  As with many other emergency shipbuilding program vessels, the Maritime Commission designed the engine this way because there was a shortage of required components for steam turbine engines, and the reciprocating engines used in Liberty ships were too slow for the tankers.

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This model is painted in the livery of the Keystone Shipping Corporation. The company, founded in 1909, grew to manage a fleet of 75 ships, mostly tankers, during World War II.  Today, the Keystone Shipping Corporation manages a variety of vessels for both government and commercial operators.