BY ANNA WOTEN, CURATOR OF COLLECTIONS & KATE TALLMAN, COLLECTIONS ASSOCIATE

Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts was not expecting to receive a letter from the United States Maritime Administration in his mailbox last May.

The Administration, responsible for operating the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Merchant Marine, was in possession of the builder’s hull plate from a World War II vessel – the SS Clarksville Victory. They wanted to get in touch with the namesake city to arrange a donation of the artifact.

The plate, much like an architect’s plaque on a building, features the ship’s location and company of manufacture, along with the hull number and launch date. It is the only remaining piece of this Victory ship, which was sold overseas for scrap nearly thirty years ago.

As one of the newest acquisitions to the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center collections, the donation has brought this piece of local history back to life, inspiring new interest in its connection to the city of Clarksville, the role Victory ships played in the war and the perils faced by the “seagoing cowboys” in its aftermath.

As war raged in Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was reluctant to join the war effort and searching for ways to provide aid to Great Britain. With the passing of the Merchant Marine Act in 1936, Congress created the U.S. Maritime Commission, responsible for the oversight of a “naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency.”

The original goal was to produce 50 ships a year for 10 years, but by 1939, it was evident that this would not provide adequate support to allies in Europe. The Maritime Commission ramped up production, and in a few years, American shipyards had built nearly 6,000 cargo ships. “Liberty” ships, built as a boon for the European war effort, comprised a little less than half of this new fleet.

After the United States entered the war in 1941, German submarines enacted losses that the U.S. struggled to outpace. The Maritime Commission once again expanded the shipbuilding program, endeavoring to create ships capable of carrying the large quantities of supplies needed in Europe at a speed that would allow them to outrun German U-boats. These vessels were coined “Victory” ships. Both Liberty and Victory ships carried cargo and troops, and served as fuel tankers, hospitals and prisoner transport. While the Liberty ships were designed to be the dependable workhorse of the war, Victory ships, with their speed and carrying power, would continue to be used after the war as part of the regular merchant fleet. The Maritime Commission built 531 Victory vessels during the course of the war – the greatest ship-building program in American history.

Victory ships were 455 feet long, 62 feet wide and, thanks to their faster steam turbine engines producing 8,500 horsepower, could sail at a speed of 15-17 knots. The five cargo holds and living quarters would transport 4,555 net tons of cargo and passengers, including 62 civilian merchant sailors and 28 naval personnel to operate defensive guns and communications equipment. Built in one of seven shipyards in the United States, Victory ships were either crafted in California, Washington, Oregon or Maryland. After the inaugural SS United Victory, subsequent cargo ships were named after member countries of the United Nations, followed by cities and colleges across the United States.

The SS Clarksville Victory was built at the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland in 1945. It was the first ship of its type to be named for a Tennessee town, and for this illustrious honor, clubs and citizens of Clarksville volunteered to stock the ship’s library. In a matter of months, 160 books were donated or purchased. It is unclear exactly why Clarksville was chosen for this particular distinction.

On January 30, Mayor William Kleeman and his family traveled to Baltimore for the christening of the SS Clarksville Victory. Mayor Kleeman’s daughter, Anne, served as the sponsor of the ship. His son, Bill, remembers that day quite well.

“It was impressive, with the big ship and so forth. I do remember that it was very cold, because it was January in Baltimore,” said Kleeman. “I was about the same age that my grandson is now, about 13 years old. I was very much in the background... I think my sister was very excited about it.”

Anne was a student at Sweet Briar College in Virginia at the time, meeting her family as they traveled to Baltimore by train for the christening. "She had to hit the ship twice – the first time it didn’t break! The ship had started moving down, and they told her, real quick: ‘hit it again!’”

With the crack of that silk-shrouded champagne bottle – which is currently preserved in the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center’s collections – the SS Clarksville Victory set off into the Atlantic, on its way to provide much-needed supplies to war-torn Europe.

Mayor Kleeman was an old friend of then-Vice President Harry Truman, as the two men served together during World War I in the 129th Field Artillery, 35th Division. The pair would often take trips out west to Tiptonville, Tennessee to go fishing and waterfowl hunting in Reelfoot Lake. On October 8, 1945, Truman even held a press conference on the porch of Linda Lodge on Reelfoot Lake to share that the United States intended to keep the secret of the atomic bomb to itself.

Truman assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, a few months after the launch of the Clarksville Victory. Bill Kleeman recalls Truman’s sense of humor and has memories of visiting the White House and running through Air Force One as a child. “He told me that my dad was about my size when he served with him,” Kleeman remembered with a laugh. As far as we know, the friendship between Truman and Kleeman did not have any direct connection to the naming of the ship.

Departing United States docks 12 times during its lifetime, the Clarksville provided wartime assistance and post-war recovery missions. It was one of 73 ships to participate in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration’s missions aimed at jumpstarting post-war rehabilitation efforts. This included supplying an initial 742 horses to Danzig, Poland, in an effort replace livestock killed during the war, contributing a total of a quarter of a million animals to European citizens struggling to rebuild. It entered the James River Reserve Fleet on January 16, 1948 and was finally sold for scrap on December 9, 1993.

While hundreds of Victory ships were built during the war effort, only three remain intact. The SS American Victory in Tampa, Florida, the SS Lane Victory in Los Angeles, California, and the SS Red Oak Victory in Richmond, California now all stand as floating museums. These pieces of living history recognize the contributions of those who built, sailed and staffed Victory ships from coast to coast.

Recent efforts by the U.S. Maritime Administration to donate artifacts from various Liberty and Victory ships to their namesake locations have reinvigorated local interest in these floating historical vessels. In addition to the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center’s newest acquisition, the bell from the SS Battle Creek Victory has found its home back in Michigan at the Battle Creek Regional History Museum and the city of Carroll, Iowa was recently gifted the builder’s hull plate of the SS Carroll Victory, launched in 1944.

Despite its decommission, the SS Clarksville Victory left an immutable mark on history. Ships like the Clarksville Victory helped Europe and its citizens rebuild from the catastrophic destruction of World War II. By continuing to tell its story, we preserve and honor the efforts of civilian and military personnel in our community.