Liberty ship cargo questions

Finally got off my behind and culled through all the reference pics I gathered for my Liberty ship build. This is a sampling. Size and quality varies vastly.

As promised, the first one is the tug as deck cargo! :

Next we have the usual large wooden crates on some of the hatches, but not all. This one also has the longer booms for the torpedo nets that could be deployed along both sides:

Here we have some LCVPs as deck cargo, notice they are perpendicular to the hatches. This is also one of the few photos I found of a Liberty painted in any kind of camouflage, let alone a dazzle scheme:

Here is the Daniel Carroll with a full load of I don't know what on Hatches 2-5:

 As you can see, nothing was wasted spacewise as far as stowing deck cargo:

The John Calhoun with what looks like ... structural steel and construction supplies:?

Excellent shot of a Liberty with a full deck load of P-47s, even on the No. 1 hatch:

Not a Liberty, looks like a tanker, but here is a deck load of P-51s and P-47s, showing them protectively wrapped, with additional canvas or something like it around the engines:

 And finally we have the Peter Silvester with a full, and I mean full, load of 6x6 trucks:

Mfsob, great pics. They are much better than any that I have been able to find. Do you remember where you got them? Love the one with the tug. Do you have a larger version?

cwalker3 ... unfortunately, no, allllllllllllllll over the web. Google image search is your friend. All of these are the largest image size available, sorry. Some websites that I did cull images from:

http://www.usmm.org/index.html

http://www.liberty-ship.com/

http://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/

http://www.navsource.org/ - look in the sections where Libertys were converted to other military uses

http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/ 

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ - for pictures of specific ships.

http://www.armed-guard.com/

That looks like TWO tugboats to me.

Looks like TWO tugs to me.

Those are LCM's on the hatch covers, not LCVP's. 

Iron Shipwrights has a good selection of 1/350 cargo: M4A3 Shermans, M7 Priests, DUKW vehicles, M109A3 Self propelled Howitzers, M923 5-ton Trucks, M35A2 2 1/2 Ton Trucks, and even M1A1 Abrams and M998 HMMWVs if you want to go all Final Countdown on us and get a little anachronistic.  I believe they come in six packs for $9.98.  Hope this helps.

I believe if you look closely you will see that those are LCVPs stowed in the wells of LCMs that are in turn stowed on deck. This was a common practice on the AKAs and APAs used for amphibious landings. This ship appears to be reconfigured as an AKA as a few liberty ships were during the war.

amphib

This ship appears to be reconfigured as an AKA as a few liberty ships were during the war.

Bondo

I make out a K and a three digit number  on her stern. According to a book I have the Navy would have classified her as a cargo ship. Reading further I find USS Sabik AK 121 configured to carry 1000 passengers plus cargo and to have 8 LCMS and LCVPs. I see the 8 LCMs and LCVPs and a lot of extra life rafts. So I'll go with USS Sabik until someone gives me a definitive hull number. No doubt more than one ship had this configuration though.

Amphib

Here's what appears to be a description of the class (Crater, of which their were 62);

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g100000/g105493c.htm

There was another thread recently about auxiliaries. This would be a very good one. I'm sorely tempted.

And, we have a winner! At least according to wiki fwiw. Good sleuthing,amphib!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Menkar_%28AK-123%29