Gilliam class attack transport

USS Fallon (APA-81), one of 32 Gilliam-class attack transports
Class overview
Name:	Gilliam-
Builders:	Consolidated Steel
Operators:	US Navy
Preceded by:	Sumter-class
Succeeded by:	Haskell-class
In commission:	1 Aug 1944 - 9 Apr 1945 - 9 Apr 1946 - 23 Jan 1947
Completed:	32
Active:	None
Lost:	12 (as target ships)
General characteristics
Type:	Attack transport
Displacement:	4,247 tons (lt) 7,080 t.(fl)
Length:	426 ft (130 m)
Beam:	58 ft (18 m)
Draft:	16 ft (4.9 m)
Propulsion:	Westinghouse turbo-electric transmission, 2 boilers, twin propellers, Design shaft horsepower 6,000
Speed:	17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Capacity:	47 Officers, 802 Enlisted, cargo 85,000 cu ft, 600-2,600 tons
Complement:	27 Officers 295 Enlisted
Armament:	1 × 5"/38 caliber dual-purpose gun mount, 4 × twin 40 mm gun mounts, 10 × single 20 mm gun mounts

The Gilliam-class attack transport was a class of attack transport built for service with the US Navy in World War II.

Like all attack transports, the purpose of the Gilliams was to transport troops and their equipment to foreign shores in order to execute amphibious invasions using an array of smaller amphibious assault boats carried by the attack transport itself. Like all the attack transports, the Gilliam-class was heavily armed with antiaircraft weaponry to protect itself and its cargo of troops from air attack in the battle zone.

The Gilliam-class utilized the Maritime Commission (MARCOM)'s Type S4-SE2-BD1 hull. All 32 vessels of the class were built under MARCOM contracts by the Consolidated Steel Corporation of Wilmington, California.

The first of the ships, the USS Gilliam (APA-57), rolled off the Wilmington ways on 28 March 1944 and was commissioned on 1 August 1944. The rest rapidly followed, a new Gilliam-class vessel rolling of the shipways at an average of roughly one per week until April 1945.

The Gilliams, with less than half the displacement, were significantly inferior in both troop and cargo carrying capacity to the previous class of attack transport, the Bayfields, and also slightly slower. It is not clear therefore why they were produced but probably it was simply because attack transports were at this time a much-needed type and the Navy chose to utilize any available shipbuilding capacity to acquire them.

As they arrived relatively late in the war, Gilliam-class ships did not get much chance to see combat. Some of the earlier vessels saw action at either the battle of Luzon or the battle of Iwo Jima and later at the invasion of Okinawa, while later vessels saw combat either at Okinawa alone or not at all. Regardless, all of them spent a considerable part of their time on troop transport, cargo and other support missions.