ESCAMBIA T-AO 80

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Escambia Class Fleet Oiler Keel Laid December 1942 - Launched April 24 1943 USS ESCAMBIA AO-80 Commissioned October 28 1943 - Decommissioned February 20 1946 Struck from the Naval Register (date unknown) Reacquired by the US Navy January 26 1948 Operated under contract to Naval Transportation Service USNS ESCAMBIA T-AO-80 Placed in service July 18 1950 - Placed out of service (unknown) Struck from the Naval Register 1957 Laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet Acquired by the US Army in May 1966 and converted to a Floating Power Plant     assigned to Vietnam service Scrapped by Vietnam Government in August 1971

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. USS Escambia AO-80 Covers Page 1     (Date)
2. USNS Escambia T-AO-80 Covers Page 1     (Date)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Postmark Date	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

 

Locy Type 2z

1944-05-16

Censored Sailor's mail

 

Locy Type 9efu

1944-06-06

Registered mail, courtesy of the Bob Govern collection.

 

Locy Type P USCS Postmark Catalog Illus. E-26

1946-01-14

Cachet artist is M. Fay Muridge, cachet sponsor is John Paul Jones Chapter No. 2, USCS

 

Locy Type P USCS Postmark Catalog Illus. E-26

1946-01-28

No. 10 Official Business mail

 

Other Information

USS ESCAMBIA earned the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (w/ 5 Battle stars), the World War II Victory Medal, the Navy Occupation Service Medal (w/ Asia clasp) and the Philippine Liberation Ribbon during her Naval career.

NAMESAKE - A river in Georgia and Florida.

Footnote - ESCAMBIA's official insignia is shown above, here's how it came about. In February 1945, Executive Officer Richard Stephens requested a friend working at Walt Disney Studios to suggest a "trade mark" for our ship. He designed this "floating service station" with a pump and hose on a floating barrel of oil, with Jose' Carioca ready to fuel the next ship coming by. Ken Hackett (CMM) reproduced the insignia on each side of the bridge, where it drew admiring chuckles from the crews of ships we refueled. Jose' Carioca was expected to become more famous than Donald Duck, but Jose' didn't achieve star status -- except on the AO-80! Jose' was the star of the animated movie "The Three Caballeros". Courtesy of USS ESCAMBIA, INC. website.

 

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If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

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