SS Ohio

SS Ohio entering Grand Harbour in Malta lashed between two destroyers and a tugboat
History
USA, UK
Name:	Ohio
Owner:	Texas Oil Company, registered to the Eagle Oil and Shipping Co. Ltd. preceding Operation Pedestal.
Laid down:	7 September 1939
Launched:	20 April 1940
Acquired:	Commissioned in the British Merchant Navy on 10 July 1942
Decommissioned:	15 August 1945 after irreparable damage.
Nickname(s):	"OH 10"
Fate:	Sunk by being used for naval gunfire practice on 19 September 1946
General characteristics
Tonnage:	9,264 GRT
Length:	515 ft (157 m)
Speed:	16 knots (30 km/h) (Sea trials 19 knots (35 km/h))
Complement:	77 men (24 to service the guns)
Armament:	1 × 5-inch low-angle gun (aft) 1 × 3-inch AA-gun (bows) 1 × 40mm army Bofors abaft the funnel 6 × 20mm naval Oerlikons

The SS Ohio was an oil tanker built for the Texas Oil Company, (now Texaco). The ship was launched on 20 April 1940 at the Sun Shipbuilding Yard in Chester, Pennsylvania. She was requisitioned by the Allied forces to re-supply the island fortress of Malta, during the Second World War.

The tanker played a fundamental role in Operation Pedestal, which was one of the fiercest and most heavily contested of the Malta Convoys, in August 1942. Although Ohio reached Malta successfully, she was so badly damaged that she had to be effectively scuttled in order to offload her cargo, and never sailed again. The tanker is fondly remembered in Malta, where to this day she is considered to be the saviour of the beleaguered island.

Hull 190, as the Ohio was identified before her launch, was a skilful compromise, promising broad cargo-carrying capacity to the merchant and speed, balance, and stability to the mariner. Above the waterline, the construction echoed the outward curve of a schooner's bow, bearing the influence of the old American clipper ship design. The design of Hull 190 was influenced also by the menace of a rearming Germany and a Japanese Empire bent on military expansion. The approach of war had influenced this design, the unofficial conversations between military and oil chiefs resulted in a ship of 9,264 gross register tons, 515 feet in overall length, and capable of carrying 170,000 barrels (27,000 m³) of fuel oil, bigger and with a larger capacity than any other tanker previously built. The ship was completed in the unusually short time of seven months and fifteen days.

The Westinghouse turbine engines developed 9,000 driveshaft horsepower at ninety revolutions per minute, which allowed a maximum sixteen knots, a speed never attained before by any modern tanker of her era. Her method of construction was controversial. For some years, the issue of welding versus riveting had been raging on both sides of the Atlantic. Hull 190 was built using the new-fashioned welded method, hopefully proving once and for all its reliability. The ship also had a composite framing system with two longitudinally continuous bulkheads, which divided the ship into twenty-one cargo tanks.