SS Charles H. Cugle

SS Charles H. Cugle was a Type Z-EC2-S-C5 Liberty ship built by J.A. Jones Construction of Panama City, Florida, launched on 13 August 1945. It was ordered by the War Shipping Administration under Maritime Commission Contract number 3145.

As part of the Army Nuclear Power Program the ship was transferred to the U.S. Army in March 1963, and fitted with a pressurized water reactor, fuelled by used low enriched uranium, designed by Martin Marietta, becoming the world's first floating nuclear power plant, at a cost of $17 million.

Now renamed USS Sturgis (MH-1A) the reactor began operation on 24 January 1967 at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, generating 10 MWe of electrical power. The reactor barge was then towed to Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal Zone to provide power, owing to a lack of water for the hydroelectric plant. The ship returned to Fort Belvoir in early 1977, and the reactor deactivated and de-fueled. The ship was decontaminated, sealed, and assigned to the James River Reserve Fleet for an expected 50 years of SAFSTOR.