CZ:Featured article/Current
The Mission Buenaventura class was a series of twenty-seven T2 tankers built during World War II by Marinship of Sausalito, California under contract to the United States Maritime Commission for use by the United States Navy as fleet oilers. Two additional vessels were converted to distilling ships in 1944, after their keels were laid. All ships in the class were named after Spanish colonial settlements located in the present-day state of California save for USNS Mission Loreto which was named for a settlement in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Operating under civilian charter through 1946, the ships were transferred to the Naval Transportation Service (NTS) in 1947-48 and then to the Military Sea Transportation Service (MATS) in 1949. Two vessels were lost at sea: Mission San Francisco broke in two and sank with the loss of ten souls following a collision with the Liberian freighter Elna II while passing New Castle, Delaware on March 7, 1957, and Mission San Miguel ran aground on Maro Reef in the Hawaiian Islands on October 8, 1957.
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