In anser to MattyBoy; I sailed for MSC during the 1970s and, while I never sailed on the Aeolus, I did sail on another vessel that operated with her for a while. Yes, you are quite correct, although the officers and crew were civilians, we WERE required to have TOP SECRET clearance in order to sail on "Special Project" ships of that sort.

What an engrossing piece of information tom400. 2 Questions: I thought divided engine rooms was a recent engineering concept. I didn't realise it was used all those years ago which essentially would make this class of vessel unique in it's own right I'm guessing. I wonder who came up with the idea. I hear that one of the new cruise ships has two engine rooms (I think it was a cruise ship) and secondly, I assumed, probably wrongly that the MSC was part of the same branch of the Navy. Is it the equivalent of the UK Auxiliary branch?
Regards,

Type S4-SE2-BD1 or S4-SE2-BE1

64 of this class completed by Consolidated Steel Corp., Wilmington, CA (32 x BD1) and Walsh-Kaiser Shipbuilding Co., Providence, RI (32 x BE1), 1944/45.

Purely military vessels for the purpose as special attack troopers with shallow draught design, twin screws, divided engine rooms to give the vessels more safety as troopships. Turbo-electric drive, 6.600shp, 16.5kn. They were designed to carry up to 821 marines in combat teams plus all their necessary equipment including landing craft (up to 12 LCVP's, 2 LCM's 1 LCP.

After the war all of them have been laid up or used as "guinea-pig" target ships in the atom bomb tests in the Pacific in 1946. Later 2 of them were transferred to the Chilean Navy, 2 converted to cable layers, 2 became Navy survey ships and a few were used as maritime training ships.

AEOLUS was converted in 1954/55 by Bethlehem Steel Co., Baltimore, ex TURANDOT (AKA 47). In 1973 she was transferred from the Navy to the Military Sealift Command, overhauled and redesignated T-ARC 3.

Thanks REG for providing that very interesting comment both about the ship and the programme on which she was engaged. Derek

Many thanks Bjorn Knudsen for the addition of the IMO No. Derek

As a troop transport did she ever carry any weapons?

Interesting piece of history there REG. I'm guessing then that the crew had to sign an official secrets Act statement?

Aeolus ARC3 - LR/IMO: 6122159

This is a good-quality photograph of a very special U.S. Naval Ship that was rarely seen, let alone photographed. Aeolus was originally laid down in 1945 as a troop transport, but was converted during 1955 into a cable layer. However this particular cable layer was employed in the SOSUS program, laying and maintaining sound detection cables along the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean for detecting Soviet submarines. The SOSUS program was "Very Hush-Hush", and the ships involved were rarely seen, either by the general public or even by most of the U.S. Navy personnel. USNS Aeolus was operated by the Military Sealift Command and most of the crew were civilians.