Transport ships of the 2nd Marine Division for the Tarawa invasion.
Capt. H. B. Knowles, USN
Trans Div 4 CT 2 (2nd Marines
APA Zeilin LT 2/2 (2nd Bn, 2nd Marines)
APA Heywood LT 2/8 (2nd Bn, 8th Marines)
APA Middelton LT 3/2 (3rd Bn, 2nd Marines)
APA Biddle LT Hq/2nd Marines
APA Lee LT 1/2 (1st Bn, 2nd Marines)
APA Thuban LT Detachments CT 8
Trans Div 18 CT 8 (8th Marines)
APA Monrovia LT 3/8 (3rd Bn, 8th Marines)
APA Sheridan LT 1/8 (1st Bn, 8th Marines)
APA La Salle Division Troops
APA Doyen Division Troops
APA Virgo Detachments CT 8
LSD Ashland * Medium Tanks
Trans Div 6 CT (6th Marines)
APA Harris LT 3/6 (3rd Bn, 6th Mariines)
APA Bell LT 2/6 (2nd Bn, 6th Marines)
APA Ormsby LT Hq/6th Marines
APA Feland LT 1/6 (1st Bn, 6th Marines)
APA Bellatrix Detachments CT 6
* Joined the transport group at Villa Harbor, Efate.
Source: Appendix E, p.79, Stockman, James R. The Battle for Tarawa. 1947.
There are a bunch of photos of the ship at the link but I don't know how to post them here.
USS Heywood (AP-12, later APA-6), 1940-1946
USS Heywood, a 14,560-ton transport, was built in 1919 at Alameda, California, as the civilian freighter Steadfast. Extensively rebuilt in about 1930 and renamed City of Baltimore, she was employed as a passenger-cargo ship until October 1940, when the Navy acquired her. She was converted to a transport at Portland, Oregon, renamed Heywood (AP-12) and placed in commission in November 1940. Until June 1941, she operated in the Pacific, then transited the Panama Canal and participated in the occupation of Iceland that summer. Heywood served in the Atlantic and Caribbean through the remaining period of nominal peace and during the first four months of World War II.
In April 1942 Heywood retransited the Panama Canal for use transporting reinforcements to the south Pacific. She took part in the Allies' first major offensive against the Japanese, the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi in early August and spent the rest of the year supporting the fight to hold Guadalcanal against enemy counter-attacks. The ship was reclassified as an attack transport in February 1943, receiving the new hull number APA-6. Following an overhaul, in April 1943 she went north to Alaskan waters, where she participated in the amphibious operation to seize Attu in May. Heywood left the north Pacific after Kiska was recovered in August and in November took part in the capture of Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands.
Heywood's next combat operation was the Marshall Islands invasion in January and February 1944. During June and July, she landed troops on Saipan and Tinian, in the Marianas. As U.S. forces returned to the Philippines, she participated in the invasions of Leyte in October 1944 and of Luzon, at Lingayen Gulf, in January 1945. Heywood carried reinforcements to Okinawa during the later part of the battle to capture that island and was preparing for the invasion of Japan when the Pacific War ended in August 1945. She then spent two months supporting occupation efforts before steaming back to the United States. USS Heywood was decommissioned at Boston, Massachusetts, in April 1946. Transferred to the Maritime Administration in July of that year, she later regained her old name, City of Baltimore, and survived until 1956, when she was scrapped.
My Dad served in the Coast Guard and was assigned to the APA Arthur Middleton. He described - not to me - that the bodies of our Marines were so numerous & floating in the lagoon & he couldnt avoid them when his landing craft came ashore.