19. The Liberty ships faded away over the next decades
Although the US Navy purchased several Liberty ships in the 1950s and 1960s for various uses, many of them experimental in nature, by 1970 nearly all of them were out of service. In 1965 more than 180 Liberty ships sat at anchor in the Reserve Fleet in the Hudson River. By 1971 all had been scrapped. The more than 500 Liberty ships held in reserve in California in the early 1960s went to scrapyards beginning that decade. The last Liberty ship to be completed and launched, SS Albert M. Boe, had an unusual career almost from the moment it entered the water. Built in 1945, Albert M. Boe was designed to carry boxed aircraft components. The ship entered the Reserve Fleet in 1946, before being transferred to the US Army. In 1950 the Army turned the ship over to the US Navy. It served in its designed purpose during the Korean War.
After that war, the ship returned to the Reserve Fleet, decommissioned. It languished in that capacity for a decade, before being sold for a little over $65,500 to a company which planned to use it in a manner far removed from its designed purpose. The ship was considered unseaworthy. It was converted by its new owners into an afloat fish processing and canning plant in 1965, renamed the Star of Kodiak. It remains in that use in the 21st century, the property of Trident Seafoods. Star of Kodiak is grounded, as such, it is not counted among the Liberty ships which remain afloat. Of those only two remain, both operating as museum ships.