USS General M. C. Meigs (AP-116)

USS General M. C. Meigs (AP-116) was a General John Pope class troop transport of the P2-S2-R2 type. She was a fast troop ship that transported troops for the United States during World War II and the Korean War. The ship was named after General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, the Quartermaster General of the United States Army during the United States Civil War.

General M. C. Meigs was launched on 13 March 1944 under a Maritime Commission contract by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Company of Kearny, New Jersey; she was acquired by the Navy on 2 June 1944, and commissioned at Bayonne, New Jersey the next day with Captain George W. McKean, USCG, in command. A fast troop carrier, she was capable of with 5200 troops on board. She was one of several of this class of transports that was manned by United States Coast Guard personnel.

World War II

After two round-trip, troop-carrying voyages between Newport News, Virginia, and Naples, Italy General Meigs departed for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she was visited by Brazilian President Getulio Vargas, and embarked 5,200 troops of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force, the first Brazilian troops to be carried by an American transport. She carried these troops to Italy, where they participated in the Italian campaign. At Naples, she embarked troops, civilians, and 460 German prisoners of war for transportation to the United States, collecting additional troops at Bizerte, Tunisia, and at Oran, French Morocco.

General Meigs...
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