USS William P. Biddle (APA-8)

USS William P. Biddle (APA-8) was a Heywood-class attack transport that served with the US Navy during World War II.
Initially laid-down for the British government as War Surf, the ship that ultimately became known as William P. Biddle was completed in 1919 as the single-screw, steel-hulled freighter Eclipse. Built by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, of Alameda, California, under a United States Shipping Board contract, the former War Surf was requisitioned by the United States government before she was delivered to the United Kingdom and thus never actually carried her British name.
Commercial career
After a period of about 10 years under the ownership of the Shipping Board, Eclipse was acquired by the Baltimore Mail Steamship Company, of Baltimore, Maryland, in about 1930. Reconstructed at the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, to the lines drawn up by the noted...