America was at war. Across the European continent, the Pacific Ocean, and North Africa, Allied nations fought against the tyranny of fascism and Hitler’s ravaging forces. To maintain command of the seas, the U.S. Maritime Commission funded and administered the most ambitious merchant shipbuilding effort in world history. From 1939 through the end of World War II, U.S. shipyards delivered 5,777 oceangoing naval ships and vessels.
Image: Scanned copy of a page from Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, 1944-1945. The seventh entry from the top records the SS John Philip Sousa. Courtesy: Lloyd’s of London.
One such craft built under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program was a 441-ft. Liberty ship christened the SS John Philip Sousa. Launched on July 4, 1943, from Jacksonville, Florida, the John Philip Sousa gave service delivering much-needed cargo for the war effort. Exact operations of the ship during the war are unknown. Official logs for all Liberty ships, having been stored at a warehouse in Karney, New Jersey, were destroyed in 1971 under a U.S. Government program to purge excess paper.
After the cessation of hostilities, the ship was withdrawn from the fleet and sold for commercial use. It was renamed Erato (1946-1954), Taxiarchis (1954-1960), and Protostatis (1960-1965) under new flags, and ultimately scrapped in 1966.
Composite image: The SS John Philip Sousa flying under the Honduran flag as Erato (top) and Taxiarchis (bottom).
A bell fit for the March King
One relic from the SS John Philip Sousa survived the dismantling. The cast-brass ship’s bell, measuring 15.75 inches tall and 14.5 inches in diameter, was recovered from the vessel. Arched across the obverse of the bell are the blackened words “SS JOHN PHILIP SOUSA” between decorative belt lines.
Image: The bell of the SS John Philip Sousa. Courtesy: U.S. Marine Corps GySgt Charles J. Paul, Chief Librarian and Historian, U.S. Marine Band.
Despite a U.S. requirement commanding all surplus Navy property to be ceded to the government upon a ship’s deactivation (especially heritage bells), the bell of the John Philip Sousa found its way to Thomas Coughlin, a purveyor of nautical items in Kingston, Massachusetts. Captain Kenneth Force, a longtime director of the Regimental Band of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, saw the ship’s bell in Coughlin’s shop and acquired it. He donated the bell to “The President's Own” United States Marine Band and the National Museum of the Marine Corps in 1984.
Image: Composer John Philip Sousa (1854-1932) conducts from an American flag-draped platform on June 7, 1923.
From 1984, the bell continued service by ringing in performances of “The Liberty Bell,” one of 137 marches composed by the bell’s namesake John Philip Sousa over his career. Sousa was himself a Marine. He died March 6, 1932, after a rehearsal of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" – now the national march of the United States. The bell has since been decommissioned from concert duty and has been accessioned into the collection of the National Museum of the Marine Corps.
Cover image: Detail of the bell of the SS John Philip Sousa. Courtesy: U.S. Marine Corps GySgt Charles J. Paul, Chief Librarian and Historian, U.S. Marine Band.
