[1][2] The USS Liberator was a United States Navy ship originally built as the Wichita in 1918 by Union Iron Works in San Francisco, California.

Her service during World War I was brief, as she was decommissioned on October 4, 1919, at Bayonne, New Jersey, and subsequently returned to the United States Shipping Board.

On March 19, 1942, while en route from Galveston, Texas to New York carrying 11,000 tons of sulfur, the SS Liberator was struck by a torpedo from German submarine U-332.

[1] The 31 survivors of the SS Liberator were rescued by the USS Umpqua (ATO-25) at 1125 Eastern War Time (EWT) and taken to Morehead City, North Carolina.

Notably, on the evening prior to the sinking, the gun crew of the Liberator mistakenly fired at and hit the USS Dickerson (DD-157), which was conducting an anti-submarine patrol.