Stuff You Should Know
USS Great Sitkin was a 459-foot long ammunition ship launched on January 20, 1945, which was commissioned on August 11, 1945 under Lt. Comdr. William F. Smith's command. It had a beam of 63 feet and carried a complement of over 250 officers on board. After the shakedown, the vessel started to deposit condemned ammunition from New York to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. Then, the Great Sitkin made a few trips to the Caribbean, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, and Atlantic for replenishment purposes. It also helped during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day confrontation between USA and the Soviet Union in 1962. Six years later, in 1968, the vessel helped the Seventh Fleet in the Vietnam War and, on July 2, 1973, it was stuck from the Naval Register.