USS Majaba (AG-43/IX-102) was the Design 1049 cargo ship Meriden built in 1919 by the Albina Engine & Machine Works, Portland, Oregon.

Meriden, with U.S. Official Number 218284, signal LRPB, home port of San Francisco with registered crew size of 32.

General Steamship Corporation purchased the ship, originally costing $821,751.56, for $717,800 in a combination of cash and mortgage taking delivery on 28 May 1920.

[9] El Capitan was delivered to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) on 14 March 1942 at Alameda, California to operate under an Army Transportation Corps agreement.

The nature of the charter from E. K. Wood Lumber Co., of San Francisco, California was changed to bareboat on 23 April 1942 at Honolulu, Hawaii.

[3] In July Majaba was waiting at Palmyra for escort to the Southwest Pacific operations areas joining a convoy stopping at Fanning Island, Suva arriving at Auckland on 18 August 1942.

[11][12] Eventually she reached Efate, New Hebrides, to bolster the vital ocean supply line to American forces engaged in the bitter struggle for control of Guadalcanal.

[13][note 1] While her escort, Woodworth, patrolled for enemy submarines off Lunga Point, she began final unloading operations prior to her planned departure for Espiritu Santo.

Shortly before 0930 7 November 1942[13] lookouts in Lansdowne, anchored near Majaba, spotted a periscope of what postwar records indicate was HA-11 followed by two torpedo wakes.

The tug towed the disabled ship east along the coast of Guadalcanal and beached her that afternoon off the month of the Tenaru River.

[3] On 8 January 1943[note 2] USS Navajo and Bobolink freed Majaba from her beached position and towed her to Tulagi.

At 1528 hours the ships arrived at Tulugi and beached the bow of Majaba in the mud of a river on Florida Island.

[20][note 4] Her engine was removed and her hull repaired and she was reclassified IX-102 and placed in an in-service status on 1 July 1943, she remained at Florida Island, Solomons, and during the remainder of World War II served as a floating quarters and material storage ship.