History | |
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United States | |
Name: | SS John Barry |
Namesake: | Commodore John Barry |
Builder: | Kaiser Shipyards, Portland, Oregon |
Yard number: | 174 |
Way number: | 4 |
Laid down: | 11 July 1941 |
Launched: | 23 November 1941 |
Completed: | 17 February 1942 |
Fate: | Torpedoed and sunk in the Arabian Sea, 1944 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Type EC2-S-C1 Liberty ship |
Displacement: | 14,245 long tons (14,474 t) |
Length: | |
Beam: | 57 ft (17 m) |
Draft: | 27 ft 9 in (8.46 m) |
Propulsion: |
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Speed: | 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) |
Range: | 20,000 nmi (37,000 km; 23,000 mi) |
Capacity: | 10,856 t (10,685 long tons) deadweight (DWT) |
Crew: | 81 |
Armament: | Stern-mounted 4 in (100 mm) deck gun for use against surfaced submarines, variety of anti-aircraft guns |
SS John Barry was a 7,200-ton American Liberty ship in World War II. The ship was built at one of the Kaiser Shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and launched on 23 November 1941. The John Barry was torpedoed and sunk in the Arabian Sea at position 15°06′N 55°11′E / 15.10°N 55.18°ECoordinates: 15°06′N 55°11′E / 15.10°N 55.18°E in 1944.
The ship left its convoy under radio silence to go on a mission to Dhahran in Saudi Arabia when it was torpedoed 185 kilometres (115 mi) off the coast of Oman by the German submarine U-859 on 28 August 1944. Two crewmen were killed in the sinking and the survivors were rescued the next day. The SS John Barry was carrying a cargo of 3 million American-minted Saudi one-riyal silver coins as an American payment associated with ARAMCO. The reason for this shipment (one of several during the war) was that Saudi Arabia did not use paper money at the time and this led to a war-time shortage of currency with which to pay workers building new oil refineries and other US facilities at newly founded Dhahran.