USS Uranus ( AF - 14 ) USS " Uranus " ( AF - 14 ) was a acquired by the U . S . Navy for use in World War II . She served in both the North Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean , delivering food , including refrigerated items , to ships operating in the battle areas . Service career . " Uranus " ( AF - 14 ) — built in 1933 as SS " Helga " at Elsinore , near Copenhagen , Denmark , by Helsingpors Shipbuilding Works , for J . Lauritzen — had previously operated as SS " Caravelle " ( 1938 to 1940 ) and SS " Marie " ( 1940 to 1941 ) . She served in the fruit trade between her home country – Denmark — and Central American republics and became a ship without a country upon the fall of her homeland to the invading Germany in the spring of 1940 . Acquired by the Navy from the United States Maritime Commission on 11 August 1941 , SS " Marie " soon entered the Robbins Drydock Co . yard at Brooklyn , New York , for conversion to a naval stores ship . Renamed " Uranus " and classified AF - 14 , the ship was placed in commission at Brooklyn on 27 October 1941 , Comdr . Orrin J . Hewitt in command . During the ship ' s subsequent shakedown period , the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor ; and the United States entered World War II in both oceans . " Uranus " departed Norfolk , Virginia , on 20 December and arrived at Halifax , Nova Scotia , on Christmas Eve . Five days later , she pushed on for Iceland . " Uranus " served as a floating refrigerated storage vessel and provided stores and provisions to American forces in Iceland into the summer of 1943 . During this time , her ports of call included Hvalfjörður , Budareyi , Seyðisfjörður , Reykjavík , and Akureyri . In these inhospitable and unpredictable northern waters , the ship ran aground off Akureyri while on a coastwise passage at 0129 on 10 April 1943 , coming to a stop on a sloping gravel beach which was reputedly once the fairway between two holes of a coastal golf course . After repeated attempts , with the assistance of and , the storeship was finally refloated on the 13th . Following repairs , she departed Icelandic waters on 21 August , with men and equipment from a Navy construction battalion on board but , due to contrary winds and currents , did not make port at her Davisville , Rhode Island , destination until 3 September . After discharging passengers , the stores ship proceeded on for New York , arriving three days later . She then pressed south for Norfolk , Virginia , where she soon commenced a lengthy overhaul . " Uranus " — now outfitted with a new refrigeration system — departed the U . S . East Coast on 20 December and , five days later , reached a rendezvous with a convoy bound for the Pacific Ocean . Clearing the Panama Canal on the first day of 1944 , the stores ship headed on for Pearl Harbor on 3 January , proceeding independently , and reached Oahu on the 23d . She conducted two round - trip Pacific passages between San Francisco , California , and Pearl Harbor and Midway Island , before she sailed for Majuro in the Marshalls . For the remainder of the year 1944 , " Uranus " conducted routine cargo and stores - carrying runs between Midway Island and Pearl Harbor to the west and San Pedro , California , to the east . Overhauled at San Francisco , California , in April 1945 , the ship was based at this port for the remainder of the war in the Pacific . She subsequently participated in Operation Magic Carpet operations to bring veterans back to the United States from the erstwhile Pacific battle zones . Decommissioned on 8 May 1946 at Norfolk , " Uranus " was delivered to the War Shipping Administration of the Maritime Commission on 9 May and was struck from the Navy list on 21 May . Returned by the Maritime Commission to her original owner , J . Lauritzen as SS " Maria Dan " , re - flagged Danish , registered at Esbjerg , Denmark , she engaged in carrying wood pulp from the Baltic Sea to the United Kingdom until about 1959 . She was sold to Chrisot M . Sarlis , Patras , Greece , in 1959 , and renamed SS " Michael " .