science

USAT Meigs

USAT Meigs is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand USAT Meigs rather than just read about it. In short: USAT Meigs (sometimes incorrectly called USS Meigs) was a United States Army transport ship that was built in 1921 and sunk in Darwin Harbour in the first Japanese air raid against the Australia mainland on 19 February 1942. Construction The ship's keel was laid 30 July 1920 by the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company (later Todd Pacific Shipyards) at San Pedro, California and completed in 1921 for the Unit…

Key takeaways

USAT Meigs belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect USAT Meigs to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of USAT Meigs from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

USAT Meigs (sometimes incorrectly called USS Meigs) was a United States Army transport ship that was built in 1921 and sunk in Darwin Harbour in the first Japanese air raid against the Australia mainland on 19 February 1942.

Construction The ship's keel was laid 30 July 1920 by the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company (later Todd Pacific Shipyards) at San Pedro, California and completed in 1921 for the United States Shipping Board as West Lewark. She had a steel hull, measured 7,358 GRT (also cited as 11,358 DWT), 430.7 ft (131.3 m), 54.3 ft (16.6 m) beam and 26.2 ft (8.0 m) depth. The ship's construction was canceled in 1919 but she was then completed to a larger and different design (Design EFC 1133) than the originally planned Design 1013 and launched 24 February 1921. She was evaluated for naval use with designation ID-4490.

Service history

Peacetime service After delivery the ship was operated by the Williams, Diamond & Company, Pacific Coast shippers for the Pacific Coast-European trade. Cargo handling equipment had been designed in light of the fact that many ports lacked sufficient handling equipment ashore to enable efficient cargo operations and initial service demonstrated increased efficiency. West Lewark and sister ship, West Faralon were placed in the company's Pacific Coast-European trade with West Lewark making an initial port call at Glasgow, Scotland. In 1922 the Army acquired the ship and renamed her Meigs. USAT Meigs was one of the small fleet the Army maintained during the inter-war years and operated in the Pacific as a freight and animal transport. In 1939, with USAT Ludington, Meigs was one of only two Army owned freight transports. Included in the requirement to transport army goods and personal possessions of personnel changing duty stations to the Pacific was transport of cavalry and personal horses of officers with occasional mention of the ship transporting notable horses or owners transferring between Pacific and continental postings. In July 1938 Meigs found an oil slick along the course of the lost Pan American flying boat Hawaii Clipper about 500 miles from Manila, took samples and stood by for further investigation.

War service Shortly before the US entry into World War II, the ship was given the tentative Navy hull number AK-34 under an agreement that Navy would take over then commission and crew any Army transports operating in areas of potential naval opposition. The reality of war resulted in a December 1941 Presidential order suspending that agreement and the hull number is listed by Navy as "not used." USAT Meigs was part of the Pensacola Convoy attempting to reinforce the Philippines in the early stages of the Pacific War and held at Fiji when it was evident the Japanese were already invading the Philippines. Despite a military decision to bring the convoy back to Hawaii or the West Coast, a presidential decision routed the ships to Australia to attempt Philippine support from there. After being part of an abortive convoy escorted by USS Houston and smaller escorts, that had departed on 15 February 1942 in an attempt to reinforce the island of Timor, she returned to the Australian town of Darwin, Northern Territory. On 19 February 1942 Japanese aircraft attacked Darwin's land and shipping targets in two waves. The Meigs was one of six ships sunk, with one of its crew of 66 killed, after being struck by a number of bombs and aerial torpedoes.

Wreck Although the superstructure of the wreck was salvaged after the war by Fujita Salvage of Osaka, Japan, the cargo of munitions, railway rails, Bren gun carriers and trucks intended for Allied forces in Portuguese Timor remains. The Meigs is now a dive site, where the remnants of the cargo are as visible as the remains of the vessel itself. It lies in 18 metres (59 ft) of water at coordinates 12°29.26′S 130°49.10′E, and due to the large tidal movements creating strong currents and poor visibility, is only divable around neap tides.

Namesakes The name USS Meigs is incorrectly applied to the USAT Meigs and also, properly, to the USS General M. C. Meigs (AP-116), which served in the Korean War. There was also a small Quartermaster Corps passenger and freight steamer built in 1892 by John H. Dialogue & Son, Camden New Jersey, and serving in the early 20th century named General Meigs.

See also List of ships sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy

References

External links The Bombing of Darwin Australian War Memorial, photograph P05303.019 The war at home: Second World War shipwrecks in Australian waters

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with USAT Meigs

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what USAT Meigs claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to USAT Meigs before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about USAT Meigs ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of USAT Meigs

In research: USAT Meigs appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses USAT Meigs in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: USAT Meigs is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1921 ships, Design 1133 ships of the United States Army, Maritime incidents in February 1942, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for USAT Meigs outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study USAT Meigs in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what USAT Meigs means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain USAT Meigs out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is USAT Meigs in simple terms?

Why does USAT Meigs matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study USAT Meigs?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on USAT Meigs.