Crescent City - class attack transport The " Crescent City " - class attack transport was a class of U . S . Navy attack transport s that saw service in World War II and the Korean War . There were four ships in the class : " Crescent City " , " Charles Carroll " , " Monrovia " , and " Calvert " . Like all attack transports , the purpose of the " Crescent City " ships was to transport troops and their equipment to foreign shores in order to execute amphibious invasions using an array of smaller assault boats integral to the attack transport itself . Like all the attack transports , the class was well armed with antiaircraft weaponry to protect itself and its cargo of troops from air attack in the battle zone . Class history . The " Crescent City " class began as a class of Navy transport ships ( classification AP ) . Like many other transports , they were redesignated attack transports ( APA ) on 1 February 1943 , the date on which the Navy formalized its separate classification of transport vessels into ordinary transports and attack transports . Unlike many other classes of attack transport , there was no consistent naming convention for these vessels , with individual ships being named after cities , national heroes , or counties of the United States . The four ships of the " Crescent City " class were based on the Maritime Commission ' s ubiquitous Type C3 merchant / auxiliary hull ( specifically , the C3 - P or C3 - Delta types ) . These were pre - war merchant ship hull types which had been specifically designed with prospective Naval auxiliary service in mind . All four ships were laid down by Bethlehem Steel at their Sparrow ' s Point shipyard , but the lead ship , the eponymous " Crescent City " was launched almost two years before the others , in February 1940 . The remaining three were launched between March and September 1942 . The commissioning dates were not so far apart though , since " Crescent City " had to undergo several months converting to an attack transport before she was ready to serve in October ' 41 . The rest were commissioned from August to December ' 42 . The build time for these ships , from laying down to commission , appears to have been about nine months - relatively fast for the C3 type . The " Crescent City " class ships were notable for their variety of armament - no two ships had the same configuration . The ships were fitted out with either three or four 3 " / 50 caliber gun s but the last two also got one 5 " / 38 caliber gun - a superior weapon which had proven its effectiveness in the antiaircraft role and which all later classes of APA received . The remainder of the weaponry was made up of an assortment of 40 mm and 20 mm guns . The ships had a moderate troop capacity of around 1 , 200 to 1 , 500 men , and a useful cargo capacity of 2 , 300 to 2 , 700 tons . In service . The last three ships in the class saw service in both the Mediterranean and Pacific Theatre s , with one , " Charles Carroll " , also participating in the Normandy landings in France . Ironically , " Crescent City " , the lead ship and first to be commissioned , spent the entirety of the war in the Pacific Theatre , where she accumulated an impressive ten battle star s . Immediately after the end of the war , the ships were engaged in the redeployment of troops for occupation duties in Japan and its former territories in China and Korea , before taking part in Operation Magic Carpet , the massive sealift organized to return demobilizing troops home to the United States . The ships were then decommissioned between 1946 and 1948 , but two , " Monrovia " and " Calvert " , were recommissioned in 1950 for the Korean War , where " Calvert " earned an additional two battle stars to add to the eight received for her World War II service . Subsequently , the ships were decommissioned one by one , from 1968 to 1977 , but " Crescent City " was given a new lease of life as a training ship for the California Maritime Academy from 1971 to 1995 . She was revived again as " Artship " from 1999 to 2004 , but appears to have now joined her sister ships in the scrapyard . The " Crescent City " class as a whole earned an impressive 33 battle stars and two Navy Unit Commendation s for their military service .