USS Graffias

USS Graffias (AF-29), a , is the only ship of the United States Navy to have this name. The name Graffias is another name for the star Beta Scorpii in the constellation Scorpius. The Graffias was originally laid down in 1943 as Topa Topa, a Maritime Commission type (C2-S-E1) hull under Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1610) at the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation, Chickasaw, Alabama. The ship was acquired by the United States Navy on 19 February 1944 and subsequently converted by the Bethlehem Steel Company, Baltimore, Maryland. The Graffias was commissioned at Baltimore on 28 October 1944. Initial operations After a brief shakedown along the East Coast, Graffias sailed for the Pacific on 25 November as a unit of ServRon Ten. Reaching Ulithi on 31 December, she discharged her valuable cargo of provisions and returned to San Francisco, California, a month later. Laden with foodstuffs and provisions for the staging areas and the front, Graffias made two more San Francisco-Ulithi voyages through May 1945. The refrigerator-cargo ship returned to Pearl Harbor on 31 May and from there sailed again to Ulithi with provisions, returning to Hawaii on 14 July. After repairs at Pearl Harbor, Graffias sailed to Adak, Alaska, reaching port on 18 August. With the Japanese capitulation, she began a new task: bringing desperately needed provisions to the starving island and to American occupation forces. Graffias reached Ominato, Honshū, on 9 September, and after replenishing American bases at Wakayama, Nagasaki, and Sasebo, sailed for the United States with home and discharge-bound passengers. Putting in at Seattle on 26 October, she disembarked her passengers and checked into Bremerton Navy Yard for overhaul.