Groote Beer
A great number of Dutch immigrants have fond
memories of one of the three Victory ships which were home to them for ten
days in the late 1940s and the 1950s while crossing the Atlantic Ocean to a
new future in North America. The ships - named after stars and
constellations - Groote Beer, Waterman and Zuiderkruis are three of the
better-known post- WWII Dutch immigrant ships. Particularly the Groote Beer
took numerous Dutch immigrants to Canada and the U.S.A.
The three were built during WWII on America’s west coast at wharfs at
Portland, Oregon, and belonged to the Victory class, a successor to the far
more numerous Liberty class. The Victory ships were built with a
multi-purpose design: to be used during as well as after the war.
The immediate purpose of the three ships (Model
VC2-S-AP 5) was to transport troops (about 1,500-1,600 men). At the end of
1946 the ships were purchased by the Dutch government and in the summer of
1947 made their first voyage to and from the Dutch East Indies, now known as
Indonesia. The Groote Beer then was managed by the Stoomvaart Maatschappij
Nederland.
In 1951, the Groote Beer was refitted for a civilian purpose: she became an
emigrant ship able to accommodate approximately 850 passengers. The ship was
placed under management of the Holland-America Line (HAL). In 1960, she
again was transferred, this time to the Scheepvaart Maatschappij Trans
Ocean. The Waterman and Zuiderkruis also became this company’s
responsibility.
In the late fifties the great influx of immigrants was over and airline KLM
became the carrier of choice of most emigrants. Therefore the ships were
sold and in 1964, Greek shipping entrepreneur John S. Latvis became owner of
the Groote Beer. He re-christened the ship Marianne IV and she was engaged
as a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. From June 1965 to March 1967, she
again sailed as Groote Beer for the Holland America Line. On October 2,
1968, the ship was retired and scrapped.
The Groote Beer originally was launched and christened Costa Rica Victory by
the U.S. government at Portland’s Permanent Metals Corp. In 1944, she
measured GRT 7630 and after refitting GRT 9140. |
