Arthur Middleton [Note 1] was a transport launched as the commercial cargo/passenger ship African Comet serving in the United States Navy during World War II.

[1] African Comet, ordered as American Banker, was laid down under a United States Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 106) on 1 July 1940 at Pascagoula, Mississippi, by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation.

[2] The ship underwent initial conversion at Tietjen & Lang Dry Dock Co. yard in Hoboken, N. J. for operation as a civilian-manned convoy-loaded transport.

New Caledonia (codename "Poppy"), a key point in those lines, had been in some turmoil with Vichy governance and recent takeover by Free French and was threatened by the Japanese.

[6][7][8][9] After full conversion to an attack transport in San Francisco the ship was manned by a combined Coast Guard and Navy crew.

She reached Amchitka on 12 January 1943 and, later that day, took on board 175 survivors from Worden (DD-352), which had run aground and broken up while covering the transport during the debarkation of her troops.

Salvage operations involved completely unloading, blasting and removing the rocks from under the ship's port side, and patching the holes which they had pierced in her hull.

During this work, Arthur Middleton's boats operated in Amchitak harbor unloading supply ships and moving Army barges.

She was then towed by the merchant ship SS James Griffiths and Cree (AT-84) to the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, for correction of the damage.

The transport remained in waters east of Kwajalein Atoll from 31 January through 15 February awaiting orders to disembark her troops; but, as part of the reserve force, they were not needed.

[2] Arriving off that atoll on the 17th, Arthur Middleton landed assault troops on Engebi Island and unloaded her cargo as needed by forces ashore.

She paused en route at Kwajalein on the 26th to embark more troops and then resumed her voyage to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 8 March.

She departed Saipan on 23 June, stopped at Eniwetok and Tarawa to pick up Army troops and Japanese prisoners, and continued on to Pearl Harbor where she arrived on 9 July.

On 31 December, the ship sailed with TG 79.4 for the invasion of Luzon and arrived in the transport area in Lingayen Gulf on 9 January 1945 and landed her troops in the face of enemy air attack.

The repair work was completed on 4 September, and Arthur Middleton was assigned to duty transporting relief forces to the Philippines and returning veterans to the United States.

At the end of a dozen years in reserve, her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 October 1958; and the ship was transferred to the Maritime Administration for layup in the James River.