USS Leedstown, a 8600-ton transport, was built in 1933 at Kearny, New Jersey, as the commercial passenger liner Santa Lucia. She was acquired by the Navy in August 1942, renamed and converted for amphibious assault purposes. Commissioned in late September 1942, the ship almost immediately steamed across the Atlantic to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she joined a force preparing for the invasion of North Africa. In the early evening of 8 November, shortly after putting her troops and some of her cargo ashore east of Algiers, she was attacked by German planes and torpedoed in the stern. The following day, the immobile ship was near-missed by three bombs and hit amidships by two more torpedoes. Bombed again later in the afternoon of 9 November 1942, USS Leedstown sank off the Algerian coast with the loss of eight men out of more than five hundred on board when "abandon ship" was ordered.