Solent Models SOM 19 USS General William O. Darby P2-SE2-R1 type Transport 1950 1/1250
A 1/1250 scale model of USS General William O. Darby troop transport in 1950 by Solent Models SOM19.
This ship entered service in the autumn of 1945 as Admiral W. S. Sims AP127 with a voyage to Bombay. There were 8 ships of this type entered military service but two more were completed as liners, President Cleveland & President Wilson. In 1946 she was transferred to the US Army and re-named and in 1950 she was transferred to the MSTS and gained the funnel band on this model. During the Berlin Airlift and after, she made 135 trips into Bremerhaven (the photograph shows her against the quayside at the Coastlines model of the Columbus Bahnhof).
FRom 1965-68 she took troops to and from Vietnam and then was laid up at New York. From 1981-91 she was an accommodation ship at Norfolk Navy Yard and then returned to the James River reserve until scrapping at Brownsville in 2005.