History
United States
Name	USSTate
Namesake	Tate County, Mississippi
Builder	North Carolina Shipbuilding Company,Wilmington, North Carolina
Laid down	22 July 1944
Launched	26 September 1944
Commissioned	25 November 1944
Decommissioned	10 July 1946
Renamed	SS Julia Luckenbach SS Bay State
Stricken	19 July 1946
Honors & awards	1battle star (World War II)
Fate	Sold into merchant service, scrapped October 1970
General characteristics
Class & type	Tolland-classattack cargo ship
Displacement	13,910 long tons (14,133 t) full
Length	459 ft 2 in (139.95 m)
Beam	63 ft (19 m)
Draft	26 ft 4 in (8.03 m)
Propulsion	General Electric geared turbine drive 6,000shp, single propeller
Speed	16.5knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
Complement	395
Armament	1 ×5"/38 caliber gun 4 × twin40 mm guns 16 × single20 mm AA gun mounts

USSTate (AKA-70) was aTolland-classattack cargo ship in service with theUnited States Navy from 1944 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service and was scrapped in 1970.

Tate was named afterTate County, Mississippi. She was laid down as aType C2-S-AJ3 ship under aUnited States Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1398) on 22 July 1944 atWilmington, North Carolina, by theNorth Carolina Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 26 September 1944; sponsored by Mrs. C. E. Tate; delivered to the Navy on loan-charter on 3 November 1944; andcommissioned atCharleston, South Carolina, on 25 November 1944.

The attack transport completed shakedown training in theChesapeake Bay early in December and steamed toDavisville, Rhode Island, to load Hawaii-bound cargo. She headed south on 30 December, transited thePanama Canal between 4 and 6 January 1945, and reachedPearl Harbor on the 18th. She remained in theHawaiian Islands until 31 January when she departed Port Allen,Kauai Island, for theMarshall Islands.

Tate reachedEniwetok on 4 February and joined Transport Squadron 17, which soon departed for the Philippines. Proceeding viaUlithi Atoll and Kossol Roads, she reachedLeyte Gulf on 21 February and made a shuttle toSamar Island to discharge cargo and disembark passengers before beginning preparations for the upcoming invasion ofOkinawa. After training for the assault, she combat-loaded the men and equipment of the Army's77th Infantry Division at Tarranguna, Leyte, and on 21 March departed the Philippines with the Western Islands Attack Group. Her destination wasKerama Retto, a small group of islands located to the south and west of Okinawa, which became the fleet's steppingstone to Okinawa itself. Her soldiers and equipment went into action against the islands ofAka Shima,Kuba Shima,Yakabi Shima, andZamami Shima. By the afternoon of 28 March, the islands of Kerama Retto were secured, andTate joined the other ships in a waiting area.

The attack transport remained in the vicinity of Okinawa through three weeks of April, also participating in the assault onIe Shima during her last week in the area. On the 22nd, she headed for theMarianas, arriving atSaipan on 27 April. Five days later, she headed for theSolomon Islands.Tate loaded marines and cargo atGuadalcanal andTulagi between 8 and 17 May before heading back, via Eniwetok, to theMarianas. ReachingGuam on 4 June, she disembarked the marines and discharged her cargo. On the 13th, the attack transport got underway for the United States.

On 25 July,Tate steamed out of San Francisco Bay to return to the combat zone. Stopping at Eniwetok from 5 to 10 August, she reached Guam on the 14th, the day before the cessation of hostilities.

From there, she headed for Ulithi and thence, via Okinawa, to Jinsen, Korea, for occupation duty.Tate returned to the Philippines early in October, visiting Manila and Subic Bay. After stops atQingdao, China, and Okinawa in late November, the attack transport steamed back to the United States, arriving at Seattle on 13 December. She remained there until 26 February 1946, when she got underway for San Francisco. The ship loaded cargo between 1 and 16 March and then headed for Eniwetok andKwajalein.

She discharged her cargo at the two atolls and got underway for Panama on 4 April.Tate reached theCanal Zone on 23 April; but, instead of entering the canal, she remained on the Pacific side to help in the final removal of Americans from the air base at Seymour Island in theGalapagos. She returned to Balboa on 20 May, transited the canal, and reachedHampton Roads on 28 May.

Tate was decommissioned on 10 July 1946 and, three days later, was returned to theWar Shipping Administration. Her name was struck from theNavy List on 19 July 1946. Sometime between then and 1948, she was purchased by the Luckenbach Steamship Co. of New York City and served that line as SSJulia Luckenbach until 1958. No record was found for the year 1959, but sometime in 1960 she was sold toStates Marine Lines and renamed SSBay State. She served there for ten years until being sold for scrap in October 1970.

Tate was awarded one battle star forWorld War II service.

•  This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toUSS Tate (AKA-70).

• Photo gallery of USSTate at NavSource Naval History
• 51 Years of AKAs
• Combat Loaded: Across the Pacific on the USSTate
• States Marine Lines record of final disposition.

• Tolland-class attack cargo ships
• Tate County, Mississippi
• World War II amphibious warfare vessels of the United States
• Ships built in Wilmington, North Carolina
• 1944 ships

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