USNS Schuyler Otis Bland (T-AK-277)

USNS Schuyler Otis Bland (T-AK-277)
Career (US)
Name:	Schuyler Otis Bland
Builder:	Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp
Laid down:	9 May 1950
Launched:	30 January 1951
Acquired:	by the US Navy 4 August 1961
In service:	28 August 1961
Out of service:	1979
Fate:	sold for scrap 28 November 1979
General characteristics
Type:	Turbine Cargo Vessel
Tonnage:	561,000 Cu ft.
Displacement:	10,500 Tons light; 15,910 Tons loaded
Length:	478 ft. 145,70 m overall; 454 ft. 137,20 m loaded waterline length
Beam:	66 ft.
Draft:	27 ft.
Propulsion:	Steam Turbine powered, 1 gearbox and 1 fixed pitch propeller
Speed:	18.5 kts.
Crew:	50

USNS Schuyler Otis Bland also known as SS Schuyler Otis Bland is the only ship of the series C3-S-DX1 (Freedom-class).

Schuyler Otis Bland was laid down, 9 May 1950, as a Maritime Commission type (C3-S-DX1), under Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 2918), at Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, MS.

Schuyler Otis Bland was a prototype of the series C3-S-DX1 and what was to have been the "Bland class" of cargo ships, but Maritime Administration designers conceived of the even more modern "Mariner class" following her construction. Following the acquisition of MARCOM by United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) in 1950, the design was done as a C3-S-7. She was launched January 30, 1951, and delivered to the Maritime Commission July 25, 1951.

Schuyler Otis Bland was first assigned to the American President Lines under bareboat charter. She completed two round-the-world voyages before being transferred to the Waterman Steamship Corporation under a General Agency Agreement. On July 25, 1952, the C-3 cargo ship went into the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Mobile, Ala.

In 1957, Schuyler Otis Bland was acquired by the US Navy for operation by American Mail Lines. The American Mail Line had acquired her to replace the SS Washington Mail, which had foundered in a violent North Pacific storm. In October 1959, after more than two years with American Mail, she entered the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Olympia, Wash.

On August 4, 1961, USNS Schuyler Otis Bland was delivered to the Navy, and on August 28, assigned to the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS) and placed in service as USNS Schuyler Otis Bland (T-AK-277). USNS Schuyler Otis Bland departed San Francisco on September 28, 1961, to carry cargo to Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Kaohsiung, and other Pacific ports, beginning over a decade of service supplying military logistic requirements throughout the world.

Service in the Cold War and Vietnam War

In May 1962, the Army Special Forces counter-insurgency school which was moved from Vietnam opened in Okinawa. According to Army Field Manual FM 31-15,"Operations Against Irregular Forces", May 1961,

Terrain and the dispositions and tactics of guerrilla forces furnish excellent opportunity for the employment of chemical and biological agents and riot control agents. Operations against irregular forces should evaluate the feasibility of chemical and biological operations to assist in mission accomplishment."

The late author Sheldon H. Harris in his book "Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover Up" wrote:

The test program, [this could be part of Project AGILE or Project OCONUS] which began in fall 1962 and which was funded at least through fiscal year 1963, was considered by the Chemical Corps to be “an ambitious one.” The tests were designed to cover “not only trials at sea, but Arctic and tropical environmental tests as well.” The tests, presumably, were conducted at what research officers designated, but did not name, “satellite sites.” These sites were located both in the continental United States and in foreign countries. The tests conducted there were aimed at both human, animal, and plant reaction to Biological Warfare. It is known that tests were undertaken in Cairo, Egypt, Liberia, in South Korea, and in Japan’s satellite province of Okinawa in 1961, or earlier.(Harris, 2002)

Sheldon H. Harris continued;

The Okinawa anti-crop research project may lend some insight to the larger projects Project 112 sponsored. BW experts in Okinawa and “at several sites in the Midwest and south:”conducted in 1961 “field tests” for wheat rust and rice blast disease. These tests met with “partial success” in the gathering of data, and led, therefore, to a significant increase in research dollars in fiscal year 1962 to conduct additional research in these areas. The money was devoted largely to developing “technical advice on the conduct of defoliation and anti-crop activities in Southeast Asia.” By the end of fiscal year 1962, the Chemical Corps had let or were negotiating contracts for over one thousand chemical defoliants. The Okinawa tests evidently were fruitful.(Harris, 2002)

The logbook of USNS Schuyler Otis Bland was found by Michelle Gatz in 2012 and shows that the ship was carrying classified cargo that was offloaded under armed guard at White Beach, a U.S. Navy port on Okinawa’s east coast on April 25, 1962. The account in the ships logbook states that Schuyler Otis Bland brought classified cargo labeled "agriculture products" under armed guard to Vietnam, Okinawa, and Panama. The cargo was documented to include Agents Pink and Purple is now believed by researchers to be Biological and Chemical Agents for use in Project 112, Project AGILE, and Anti-crop activities on Okinawa and in the Special Forces counterinsurgency training area operating on Okinawa at the time. After departing Okinawa in spring 1962, Bland sailed to the Panama Canal Zone where, the Panamanian government asserts, the U.S. tested Anti-Crop Agents in the early 1960s. On August 1, 1970, the Military Sea Transportation Service became Military Sealift Command. and Schuyler Otis Bland was placed out of service in 1979 while at Guam. She was struck from the Naval Register, and transferred to MARAD for disposal. On November 28, 1979, she was sold for scrap to China Dismantled Vessel Trading Corporation, Kaohsiung, China for the price of $814,533.50