The SS U.S.S.R. Victory was the third Victory ship built during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding program. She was launched by the California Shipbuilding Company on February 26, 1944. The ship was completed and delivered to the wartime operator of all United States oceangoing shipping, the War Shipping Administration (WSA), on April 26, 1944. U.S.S.R. Victory, official number 245247, was assigned to Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc., under a standard WSA operating agreement at that time. That agreement continued until the ship’s sale on March 7, 1947.[2] The ship’s United States Maritime Commission designation was VC2-S-AP3, hull number 3 (V-3). U.S.S.R. Victory served in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.
U.S.S.R. Victory was one of the new 10,500-ton class ship to be known as Victory ships. Victory ships were designed to replace the earlier Liberty Ships. Liberty ships were designed to be used just for World War II. Victory ships were designed to last longer and serve the US Navy after the war. The Victory ship differed from a Liberty ship in that they were: faster, longer and wider, taller, had a thinner stack set farther toward the superstructure and had a long raised forecastle.[3]
U.S.S.R. Victory was christened by Mrs. Inna Pastoev, wife of the Soviet vice-consul. The Soviet vice-consul said at the christening: “another link in the chain of blows that will defeat our enemy,”[4] The launching of The U.S.S.R. Victory splashed into the water of Wilmington, Los Angeles.[5][6]
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U.S.S.R Victory namesake is for the country Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly termed the Soviet Union. In 1941, Nazi Germany began Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union. Thus the Soviet Union and the USA became Allies against Nazi Germany. Iran had declared neutrality in World War II, but now found it to be part of World War II, many of Allies supplies to the Soviet Union passed through Iran.[7] In 1941 after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran[8][9] Iran became a major conduit for British and American aid to the Soviet Union throughout the war.[10] So important to the war effort was Iran that in 1943 the leaser of the Allies, “Big Three”, (Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill) held the Tehran Conference in Iran.[11][12]
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