SS Hagerstown Victory

SS Hagerstown Victory was a Victory ship-based troop transport built for the U.S. Army Transportation Corps (USAT) late in World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding program. It saw service in the European Theater of Operations during 1945 and in the immediate post-war period repatriating U.S. troops. Hagerstown Victory was one of 97 cargo Victory ships converted to a troopship. Hagerstown Victory was one of many of the new 10,500-ton class ships known as Victory ships. Victory ships were designed to replace the earlier Liberty ships, which were intended to be used just for World War II. Victory ships, on the other hand, were designed to last longer and serve the U.S. Navy after the war. The Victory ship differed from a Liberty ship in that they were faster, longer, wider, taller, had a thinner stack set farther toward the superstructure and had a long raised forecastle.