Laid down as the Mormacmail under a Maritime Commission contract at the yard of the Sun Shipbuilding&Drydock Company at Chester, Pennsylvania on 7 July 1939, launched on 11 January 1940, she was sponsored by miss Dian B. Holt, purchased by the US navy on 6 March 1941, commissioned on 2 June 1941, decommissioned on 26 march 1946, stricken on 12 April 1946, sold to the Zidell Ship Dismantling Company at Portland, Oregon on 24 April 1947 to be broken up but which was accomplished while on 12 March 1948 she was sold to the Canada-Europe Line. After a rebuilding during 1949 and renamed Nelly she was used for transports European immigrants to Canada. In 1953 she became property of the University of the Seven Seas and became a school ship. She was the same year renamed Seven Seas and visited countries all over the whole world with her students. Her last voyage as a school ship begun on 13 September 1966 afterwards was she sold now to the University of Rotterdam where she was to be used as a floating dormitory and finally broken up in Belgium in 1977.
The drawing represents her 1944 appearance.
With a displacement of 13,499 long tons/13,716 tons were her dimensions 492’x 69’6”x 25’8” (Jane’s 25 ¾”) or 150 x 21,18 x 7,82metres. The flight deck had a length of 450’. The Sun-Duxfored diesel engine(s) provided 8,500 ship allowing a speed of 16,5 knots.The crew numbered 970 men.The armament consisted of 1-5” gun and 2-3” guns and she carried with her 21 planes and one catauplut for launching. Jane’s claimed that except for the 1-5” guns she was armed with several guns of smaller calibre; Conway‘s confirms this while saying that she was armed with 1-4” gun, 2-3” gun and 4-0.5” guns. Conway’s said that she carried 10 reconnaissance planes and 6 planes for bombing duties. The fuel bunker capacity carried with for the planes was 100,000 US galleons.
Sources
http://www.acepilots.com/ships/long-island.html
Jane’s Fighting Ships 1944-1945
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Long_Island_(CVE-1)
Conway’s All the world fighting ships 1922-1946
