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“Tullahoma – A City As Unique As Its Name” – So say a few signs along the roads leading into Tullahoma, and that’s true…now. ‘Twasn’t always so, though. There used to be a small village in Mississippi named Tullahoma. However, in 1833, it merged with the neighboring village of Pittsburg to form Grenada. That was the end of Tullahoma in Mississippi.

Recently, I learned of another Tullahoma, though it wasn’t a city, or even a village. It was a ship; an oil tanker to be precise, built and commissioned as a merchant vessel during the latter part of World War II.

I’m ever eager to learn about the history of Tullahoma, so I’m always searching websites. One of those searches recently netted a couple of U.S. Coast Guard photos showing a 1951 collision between two ships, the Tullahoma oil tanker and a freighter, the P&T Adventurer, off the shore of Cape Flattery, Washington. Basically, the Adventurer t-boned the Tullahoma in the stern, seriously damaging both ships. The Adventurer lost a piece of its bow, and the Tullahoma was leaking oil. Afterward, the Adventurer attempted to tow the Tullahoma to shore. The Tullahoma was repaired and we assume the Adventurer was, too, though we couldn’t find any further information on the latter.

The Tullahoma was a T2-SE-A1 tanker, built for the Chas. Kurz & Company of Wilmington, Delaware, by Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company of Chester, Pennsylvania. The T2 was the most common type of tanker built during World War II, and there were 533 such ships built from 1940 to 1945. The Tullahoma was launched in October 1944. It was 523 feet long and powered by two General Electric steam turbine engines with a combined 6000 horsepower. Oil cargo capacity was nearly six million gallons.

Research reveals that the Tullahoma was relaunched after its repair. Then in 1961, it was reconfigured, with a lengthened and widened mid-section built by Mitsubishi Nippon Heavy Industries in Japan and fitted in Alameda, California, by Todd Shipyard Corp. In 1978, the ship was sold to Sabine Towing & Transportation Company in Baltimore. In was then sold to shipbreakers in Taiwan in 1984 and its dismantling commenced in early 1985.

What led me down this rabbit hole was trying to learn why the ship was named the Tullahoma. It turns out that T2 ships were named after monuments, national parks, forts, battles, historic settlements, trails, lakes, and swamps. Tullahoma fit the battles distinction, and as you might imagine, there were also ships named Vicksburg, Murfreesboro, Harper’s Ferry, Little Big Horn, and many more. For forty years, our city of Tullahoma had a namesake ship.

I’m just beginning work on a book about Tullahoma in the twentieth century, roughly 1920s to 1980s. It will be mostly a photo book, with descriptive text. The book will primarily concentrate on Tullahoma in general, only touching slightly on Camp Forrest and AEDC as they affected Tullahoma as a whole. If you have some sharp, large photos you can share, I’d be honored to see them. I’ll scan them and then immediately return them to you. I’m looking mostly for businesses, industries, and major events. You can contact me at alanmayes@lighttube.net.