Talk:SS President Cleveland

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Military history: Maritime / North America / United States / World War II SIA‑class

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SIA

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Associated task forces:
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	Maritime warfare task force
	North American military history task force
	United States military history task force
	World War II task force

Proper ship name

DANFS has no listing of this ship [1] and while we know that DANFS often has errors, I doubt that it would have excluded a ship with a career as long as this one apparently had. I suspect that this ship may have been operated by a private ship company and people often believed that it was a military ship because it carried military personnel. The confusion may lie between USS as a military ship and the civilian SS. The links in this article so far are not the best gauge to use for determining if this truly was a military ship operated by the Navy. --Brad (talk) 03:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought for sure I had searched S S President Cleveland in Google, but apparently not. I certainly searched a dozen varieties. Mea culpa. I had June 1940 travel orders that showed it as USS, not SS, thus my bias that it must be so. But, then again, I'll have to take another look. There are many Google hits, including photos, copies of travel stationery, etc. I'm not quite sure how to change the title of an article in Wiki. Have done so many times in WikiSpaces. If the title doesn't get changed in the next 24 hours, I'll have a look into making the title change myself. Suffering a bit of travel lag at the moment and can't do it now. Thanks for the note, Brad. --Pat (talk) 08:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears there were three President Cleveland ships. I found [2] this page on the American President Lines which operated the ships. Apparently one was sold to the US Navy during WW2 and renamed Tasker Bliss. But I haven't found any good evidence that the Navy ever operated a President Cleveland. I'm more intrigued about the ship rather than a proper article name so I don't see any reason why it should move until more facts are collected. --Brad (talk) 21:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I double-checked the USMC Muster Rolls at www.Ancestry.com. They show William A. Brockett had orders to ship out from Shanghai for the United States Naval Academy aboard the SS President Cleveland on 9 June 1940. He apparently was riding President Cleveland (1), based on the above source. He was temporarily attached to the HQ Co of the 4th Marines in Shanghai for one month. Since this ship was sunk during the war, the subsequent references to the President Cleveland are apparently to the later iterations of the ship under the same name. I'll leave the title of the article alone as it's not my specialty anyway. It looks like a bit of digging will be required to find sources on this. --Pat (talk) 03:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only Navy-related President Cleveland I can find was chartered by the Army in 1941, renamed USAT Tasker H. Bliss, then transferred to the Navy and commissioned as USS Tasker H. Bliss (AP-42). The DANFS entry—under a misspelled name—is here: [3]. This ship was sunk in November 1942.

A piece of info that might help: coltoncompany.com identifies the Tasker H. Bliss/President Cleveland as having originally been operated as Golden State by Emergency Fleet Corp.

Another tangential possibility is that sources may have confused the USS Admiral D. W. Taylor (AP-128)— it was never commissioned and was later "operated by the American President Lines for the Maritime Commission as SS President Cleveland" per DANFS [4].

I haven't pored over the sources in the article, but given the sources I found, I think it's really unlikely that there was a ship named USS President Cleveland active from WWII through Vietnam. Sounds like two or more ships have gotten confused here. Maralia (talk) 05:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess what I will do is move this article to SS President Cleveland, then disambiguate to SS President Cleveland (1921) , SS President Cleveland (1947) and SS President Cleveland (1969) based on the year built. So, I believe the ship Pat had in mind would be the SS President Cleveland (1921). And my mother told me this was easy; ha! :) --Brad (talk) 03:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Will you include the USAT Tasker H. Bliss and redirect it to SS Cleveland 1921? Maybe the later iterations of the ship can be mentioned in bold letters or remain in red letters if notability is lacking? One's mother is always right, Brad. --Pat (talk) 20:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, USAT Tasker H. Bliss redirects to USS Tasker H. Bliss (AP-42) so I will redirect SS President Cleveland (1921) as well to, USS Tasker H. Bliss (AP-42) where all of the information gathered so far on this one ship exists. The idea behind all of the redirects are that anyone looking up the names of ships can be pointed to the best possible article that would be more complete than just a stub. --Brad (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]