USS Saturn (AK-49)

History
Germany, United States
Name:	ES Arauca (1939–41) SS Sting (1941) USS Saturn (1942–46) SS Saturn (1946–72)
Namesake:	Arauca, Colombia
Owner:	Hamburg America Line
Operator:	Hamburg America Line (1939–41) South Atlantic Steamship Co (1941) United States Navy (1942–46)
Port of registry:	Hamburg (1939–41) (1942–72)
Builder:	Bremer Vulkan
Launched:	1939
Completed:	1939
Acquired:	20 April 1942
Commissioned:	20 April 1942
Decommissioned:	23 July 1946
Struck:	15 August 1946
Identification:	call sign DKBG (1939)
Fate:	sold for scrap 12 September 1972
General characteristics
Tonnage:	4,354 GRT 2,079 NRT
Displacement:	5,088 tons light; 9,760 maximum load
Length:	398.3 ft (121.4 m)p/p 423 ft (129 m) o/a
Beam:	55.7 ft (17.0 m)
Draught:	24 ft (7.3 m)
Depth:	22.8 ft (6.9 m)
Installed power:	5,600 shp
Propulsion:	turbo-electric transmission
Speed:	17.5 knots (32.4 km/h)
Complement:	180 (1944)
Sensors and processing systems:	direction finding; echo sounding
Armament:	As USS Saturn: 1942: 1 × 5"/51 caliber gun; 2 × 3"/50 caliber guns; 4 × 20mm guns 1943: 1 × 5"/38 caliber gun; 2 × 3"/50 caliber guns; 8 × 20mm guns 1944: 1 × 5"/38 caliber gun; 2 × 3"/50 caliber guns; 2 × Bofors 40mm ; 4 × 20mm guns
Notes:	sister ships: Antilla, Orizaba

Hamburg (1939–41)

USS Saturn (AK-49) was a German cargo ship, built in 1939 as ES Arauca. ("ES" stands for "Electroschiff", meaning German: electric ship.) In 1941 before the US entered World War II, US authorities seized her and started converting her into a United States Navy stores ship. She was the sole ship of the US Navy's Saturn class. She was laid up in 1946 and scrapped in 1972.

Arauca was built for trade between Germany and the Caribbean, and was named accordingly. Arauca is a border town in eastern Colombia on the frontier with Venezuela.

Arauca was one of three sister ships that Bremer Vulkan of Bremen-Vegesack, Germany built in 1939 for Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt AG (HAPAG).Arauca had two oil-fired high pressure LaMont boilers and turbo-electric transmission. Her boilers fed two AEG turbo generators, which fed current to an AEG electric propulsion motor on her single propeller shaft.

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