USS YP-278

USS YP-278 was a fishing trawler converted to an ocean-going refrigerator ship for the United States Navy, used to distribute food supplies in the Pacific theater during World War II.

Early years
The fishing trawler was built in 1937 for Mr. Frederic Gonsalves, Jr., by the Campbell Machine Company of San Diego, California, and christened the Fishing Vessel FV Liberty. Although during World War II its crew was told it had “once belonged to Seymour and Alice DuPont, of the Wilmington, Delaware, chemical company, who had named her the Alcie in the latter's honor and utilized her as a pleasure yacht,” there is currently no evidence that this was actually the case, as it is known to the U. S. Navy that the ship was originally used as a tuna fishing vessel by Mr. Gonsalves. (Whether it was common during the war for sailors to be given false and/or inflated information about their craft to boost their morale and sense of self-importance is unknown. Another example of such a rumor might be the ship's alleged victimization in the Pearl Harbor attack, for which only hearsay evidence is obtainable. See below.) Inquiries turned up no connection between Gonsalves and the DuPont family or its chemical company.

Acquisition by the U.S. Navy during World War II
The Liberty was acquired for wartime use by the United States Navy in 1942 after it reportedly was hit and damaged by enemy fire during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. It was subsequently designated Yard Patrol Craft YP-278. In 1942, the U. S. armed services, under Rear Admiral C. H. Cobb, responding to widespread complaints about armed service food, recognized the need to provide its servicemen in the southwestern Pacific theater with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and condiments. YP-278 was one of only a few private yachts seized by the Navy and converted to ocean-going refrigerator ships in order to enable the War Department to distribute food supplies from Australia and New Zealand rather than from the more distant U. S. mainland. Once they began receiving better food, troops in the region were noted to be in better spirits. Thus YP-278 was one of the war’s most popular ships, its commander and crew hailed as lifesavers from one end of the southwest Pacific to the other.

U. S. Navy service, 1942-46
From 1942 until 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), after the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ended the war, the YP-278, under the command of Capt. Harry J. Conway (until December 1944) and Lt. (j.g.) D. Dudley Bloom (December 1944-July 1945), ran food supplies to ports along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea (until February 1945) and to those Philippine islands safely under Allied control (March–August 1945) in preparation for the planned Allied invasion of mainland Japan that was to have taken place in September 1945. While in wartime service, the ship slept sixteen crewmen and two officers. Accommodations for the crew were comparatively luxurious, with two sets of eight beds facing each other, each bed separated from its neighbors by privacy curtains and dedicated reading lights. In such intimate quarters, ship commander Lt. (j.g.) Bloom mandated that crew and enlisted men eat the same fare, sitting at the same tables—each rule a Navy innovation in December 1944.

Post-war use as a fishing vessel
After it was decommissioned in 1946, the ship was returned to Mr. Gonsalves, its owner, until 1948, when Gonsalves sold her to the Sun Harbor Packing Company, which renamed her the Fishing Vessel FV Sun Splendor. In 1965, another tuna packer, J. B. Vattuone, purchased the Sun Splendor, renamed her the Fishing Vessel FV Invader, and trawled the oceans with her until she finally had outlived her usefulness.

Final disposition
On 9 July 1979, the former USS YP-278 was sunk by collision at sea at 29.28°N, -117.12°W, off the coast of the town of San Julio, Baja California, Mexico.