USS Wharton (AP-7) was a troop transport in the service of the United States Navy during World War II. The ship was originally an Emergency Fleet Corporation Design 1029 type built for the United States Shipping Board. The ship was laid down as Manmasco but renamed and launched as Sea Girt then completed September 1921 as Southern Cross. The ship was first allocated by the United States Shipping Board to the Munson Steamship Line until purchased by the line in 1925. Munson operated the Southern Cross in the South American trade from 1921 until 1938 when the ship was sold at a Marshall's sale and taken over by the United States Maritime Commission which paid the full mortgage claim.
Southern Cross was acquired by the Navy from the Maritime Commission on 8 November 1939 and two days later renamed Wharton and designated a transport with the hull number AP-7. She was converted to a troop transport by the Todd Shipbuilding Corp., in the Robbins Drydock in Erie Basin at Brooklyn, New York. The transport was commissioned USS Wharton at the New York Navy Yard on 7 December 1940.
Commercial service
Southern Cross was allocated by the USSB to its agent, Munson Steamship Line for its South American service, operating as the Pan America Line. Munson operated the ship on the New York to Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Buenos Aires route with Santos, added during return voyages along with sister "535's" , and Western World.
As the USSB sold off its vessels the Munson Steamship Line bought the four vessels operating for its Pan America Line service in February 1926. Each ship, including Southern Cross, was purchased for a price of $1,026,000.
World War II Pacific Theatre operations
Wharton departed Brooklyn on 7 January 1941, bound for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she conducted shakedown before proceeding on through the Panama Canal to her home port, Mare Island, California. Assigned to the Naval Transportation Service, Wharton transported service personnel and their families, as well as cargo, on triangular runs from San Francisco, San Diego, and Pearl Harbor. She also made one trip to Midway Island.
First wartime operations
When the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, Wharton was undergoing overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California. On 6 January 1942, the transport sailed from the west coast for her first wartime voyage to the Hawaiian Islands. A series of runs followed in which Wharton transported service families and dependents home to the west coast on her eastbound passages and troops and cargo to Hawaii on her westbound trips.
From June through September, Wharton made three voyages to the Southwest Pacific theater – loading and unloading at such ports as Pago Pago, Samoa; Auckland, New Zealand; Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides; Nouméa, New Caledonia; Canton Island, and Suva, Fiji Islands. Between 6 and 11 August 1942 the ship transported 15 officers and 465 enlisted men of the 6th Naval Construction Battalion (6th NCB) from American Samoa to Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides with the other 7 officers and 433 enlisted men of the battalion being aboard SS President Polk, picking up the 7th Naval Construction Battalion from Samoa on the way. Wharton returned to the west coast for an overhaul which lasted into October. The troop transport then began a series of trips to the Aleutians which lasted from December 1942 to February 1943, carrying troops from Seattle, Washington, to Kodiak and Dutch Harbor and returning with civilians, troops, and patients. For the remainder of the year, Wharton made five more trips to the Southwest Pacific, during which she revisited Pago Pago, Nouméa, Suva, Espiritu Santo, where on 20 Nov 1943 she again embarked the 7th NCB for return to the United States, and Wellington, while adding Apia, British Samoa; Guadalcanal, Solomons; and Efate, New Hebrides; to her itinerary.
Invasion of the Marshall Islands
In January 1944, Wharton joined Transport Division 30 for the Marshall Islands operation. Equipped with seven manned LCVP's, Wharton sortied from Pearl Harbor in Task Group 51.1 on 23 January 1944, bound for Kwajalein and Eniwetok, with 526 Army Headquarters troops embarked. The group operated off the island of Bigej in Kwajalein Atoll from 31 January to 2 February, during the shore bombardment phase of the operation and the initial landings, before moving into the lagoon and anchoring there on 2 February.