The SS United States underway off Norfolk, Va., in 1952. (Norfolk Naval Shipyard)
An ocean liner built for a double life as a secret Cold War transport ship for troops will become the world’s largest artificial reef on the ocean floor on the Gulf Coast, according to plans from tourism officials in Okaloosa County, Fla.
The SS United States will be towed later this year from the Philadelphia waterfront — where it has sat for decades — to Mobile, Ala., to strip away toxic materials and then scuttle the ship in about 200 feet of water off the Gulf Coast.
The $10 million deal includes a shoreline museum that will tell the saga of the 73-year-old ship, including plans in the early 1950s to use it as a military transport across the Atlantic Ocean for 15,000 soldiers if Soviet Union forces ever invaded Western Europe.
The 990-foot ship could be ready for scuba-diving visitors before 2030 under the agreement between the nonprofit SS United States Conservancy that owned the ship and Okaloosa County, which is home to Destin-Fort Walton Beach, a resort community east of Pensacola along the Florida Panhandle.
“It will be an exciting addition to the many artificial reefs and wrecks available in Destin-Fort Walton Beach area for divers to explore while providing essential habitat for the fishery that our fleet is so dependent on,” said Jennifer Adams, the county tourism director.
The scuttled ocean liner will become the latest attraction of an underwater collection of more than 500 vessels. Sunken objects include the Air Force Big Dawg, a 93-foot-long water training vessel sunk in May 2021, according to the county tourism website.
Since the project began in 1976, wrecks, including fishing boats, barges, and other vessels, have grown to one of the world’s largest artificial reef sites.
Luxury liner with a mission
The SS United States was built for $78 million in 1951. At just less than 1,000 feet, it was the largest ocean liner ever built in the United States. The use of aluminum throughout the ship gave it a streamlined, modern look and a lighter displacement of less than 45,000 tons.
The ship was 100 feet longer than the legendary HMS Titanic but weighed nearly 8,000 tons less.
The design choices were also primarily influenced by a silent partner in the project — the Pentagon. Military naval architects were involved in the design from the beginning, with a plan to use the ship to move 15,000 troops to Europe if the Cold War turned hot, according to an official history of the Norfolk Naval Shipyard published in 2002.
“The U.S. government worked in conjunction with the United States Lines to develop a ‘super ship’ to be part Cold War weapon and part luxury ocean liner,” according to the shipyard’s history. “The top-secret Pentagon project produced the fastest, safest and most advanced vessel ever constructed.”
Most ships are built on an open slipway. But the SS United States was constructed in the enclosed well of a dry dock “away from prying eyes and was unveiled to the public already in the water, ensuring its knife-like hull and propellers couldn’t be studied by foreign enemies,” according to the shipyard history.
Ocean liners had shown their value for the bulk movement of men and machines during wartime. In 1943, the British luxury liner Queen Mary carried 16,600 passengers — mostly military troops — still a record for most people on one vessel for one voyage.
On the SS United States’ maiden voyage, the ship steamed from New York to Southampton, England, in three days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes in July 1952. The ship knocked nearly nine hours off the previous record, set by Great Britain’s Queen Mary in 1938.
“The United States’ machinery included four steam turbine engines and eight boilers, providing its engines with 240,000 horsepower or a top speed of 42 knots,” said Bob Driscoll with the SS United States Conservancy.
That is just less than 50 mph.
Travel trends change
The SS United States continued its role as an ocean liner through the 1950s and 1960s. The ship’s guest registry shows it carried four U.S. presidents — Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and a young Bill Clinton. Celebrities including John Wayne, Walt Disney, Sean Connery, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Bob Hope, Judy Garland and Duke Ellington were aboard for trips across the Atlantic.
In 1957, more travelers flew between the United States and Europe than took ocean liners, according to Transportation Department statistics. With the arrival in the late 1950s of jet aircraft capable of flying almost 600 miles per hour, the switch accelerated into the 1960s.
The SS United States Conservancy, the group that has kept the ship from the scrapyards like so many other ocean liners of its era, hoped to save the ship for future generation. A 2003 plan to return it to service as a retro-cruise ship fell apart over cost and regulatory issues. Hopes it would be adopted by a seaside city as a museum and tourist attraction, much like the Queen Mary in Long Beach, never materialized.
The plan to have it sunk as a reef emerged as a last best hope to save the ship from the scrapyard to cover a backlog of dock charges in Philadelphia.
The price paid by Oskaloosa County includes $9 million for the ship, with a pledge of another $1 million to build and maintain a small shorefront museum that would tell the story of the SS United States.
The ship will be towed to Mobile to begin the more than yearlong process of removing toxic materials, cleaning the exterior, and preparing the ship for its next life under the waves.
Officials said recently that it would be another year or so until the logistics of where to place SS United States are determined, and plans are set to get the ship in one piece onto the ocean floor.
“The SS United States has inspired millions the world over as a symbol of American pride and excellence,” SS United States Conservancy President Susan Gibbs said. “Converting the world’s fastest ship into the world’s largest artificial reef will write a new chapter for the SS United States as a world-class destination.”
