MS Alfhem
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| Completed: | February 1930 |
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| General characteristics | |
| Type: | cargo ship |
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| Length: | 386.3 ft (117.7 m) |
| Beam: | 54.3 ft (16.6 m) |
| Draught: | 25.7 ft (7.8 m) |
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| Propulsion: | twin screws |
MS Alfhem was a Scandinavian cargo ship that was built in 1930 and traded for more than 30 years. In her career she passed through five successive owners, managers and names. Alfhem is her fourth name and the one by which she is most widely known.
In 1954 the CIA was engineering a coup d'état in Guatemala to replace the elected civilian government of President Jacobo Arbenz with a military dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo. Since 1951 the US had withheld arms supplies to the Guatemalan government, and in 1953 the US blocked Guatemalan government attempts to buy arms from Canada, Germany and Rhodesia.
In the spring of 1954 Guatemala bought 2,000 tons of arms and ammunition from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and used Alfhem to ship them to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The US regarded Alfhem's success in evading US sea and air patrols to deliver the munitions as a setback. However, it did not prevent the CIA from executing Operation PBSUCCESS against Guatemala.
The ship was launched as Guldborg by the Odense Staalskibsværft A/S in Odense, Denmark for Dampskibsselsk Dannebrog of Copenhagen and completed in February 1930. In 1933 she was sold to Norwegian owners who renamed her Höegh Trader and placed her under the management of Leif Höegh & Co. In 1936 she was sold again, this time to Skibs A/S "Gausdal" of Odense who renamed her Gausdal. In 1953 she was sold to a Swedish company, Ångbåts AB Bohusländska kusten, who named her Alfhem and registered her in Uddevalla. In 1960 she was sold again to new owners, who renamed her Antonos V.
In Spring 1954 Alfhem loaded her Czech weapons cargo in the Baltic port of Szczecin in Poland. She then took a zig-zag course first towards Dakar in French West Africa (now Senegal), then across the Atlantic towards Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies, later re-directed to Puerto Cortés, Honduras. Finally a radio message to her Master revealed her true destination to be Puerto Barrios in Guatemala. She docked at Puerto Barrios, 185 miles (298 km) northeast of Guatemala City, on 15 May 1954.
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Wikipedia