USS Betelgeuse (AK-28/AKA-11) was an , the first United States Navy ship named for Betelgeuse, a star in the constellation Orion. She served as a commissioned ship for 4 years and 9 months. History Acquisition Betelgeuse was laid down as a C-2D on 9 March 1939 at Chester, Pennsylvania, by the Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Hull 180 under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 31); launched as Mormaclark on 18 September 1939; sponsored by Miss Anne Perry Woodward; delivered to the Moore McCormack Lines, Inc., on 29 November 1939; acquired by the Navy on 29 May 1941; renamed Betelgeuse on 3 June 1941; converted for naval service by the Brewer Dry Dock Company, Staten Island, N.Y.; and commissioned as AK-28 on 14 June. From her commissioning nearly through the fall of 1941, the cargo ship operated in the Atlantic conducting amphibious maneuvers off North Carolina in June and July, performing similar evolutions off Virginia in September, and carrying cargo to Bermuda and various ports in the West Indies during October. She then entered the Charleston Navy Yard for an overhaul and was there when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December. 1942, South Pacific Early in January 1942, Betelgeuse loaded Army cargo and, on 19 February, got underway in convoy for Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Clydebank, Scotland. Returning to New York on 25 March, she took on more supplies and sailed on 8 April with a convoy bound for the Tonga Islands, where the Navy was setting up an advanced base to consolidate the defenses of the communication and logistics lines with Australia. On 9 May, the convoy arrived at Tongatapu which the Navy was developing as a fuel base, an alternate air cargo staging port, an air support point for Fiji and Samoa, and a safe harbor for hospital ship . Betelgeuse set course for San Diego on 7 June, loaded cargo there, and got underway again on 1 July. At Pearl Harbor, she joined Task Force 62 (TF 62) which had assembled for the invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Leaving Hawaii on 31 July and arriving in "Ironbottom Sound" off Guadalcanal on 7 August, Betelgeuse quickly unloaded her cargo in the face of Japanese air attacks. On the day after the landings, she shot down two enemy planes. For the next five months, the cargo ship made resupply and reinforcement voyages to Guadalcanal and