USS Panay

Three vessels of the United States Navy have been named USS Panay, after the Visayan Island Panay.

USS Midway (AG-41)

USS Midway (AG-41) – later renamed as USS Panay (AG-41) -- was a commercial cargo ship leased by the U.S. Navy during World War II. She was used by the Navy as a cargo ship and as a troop transport in the North Pacific Ocean. She was returned to her owner at war’s end.

Constructed in Brooklyn

The first ship to be named Midway by the Navy, she was built in 1921 as Oritani by Todd Shipyards Corporation, Brooklyn, New York, and renamed Tyee in 1939; was acquired by the Navy on a bareboat charter through the War Shipping Administration (WSA) from Alaska Transportation Company, Seattle, Washington; and commissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard 10 April 1942.

World War II service

Classified as general auxiliary, Midway operated along the Pacific coast between ports of the Northwestern United States and American bases in Alaska and the Aleutians. In January 1943 she steamed to Pearl Harbor and shuttled troops, provisions and equipment between the islands of the central Pacific.

Renamed Panay

USS Panay (PR-5)

The second USS Panay (PR–5) of the United States Navy was a river gunboat that served on the Yangtze Patrol in China until sunk by Japanese aircraft on 12 December 1937 on the Yangtze River.

The vessel was built by Kiangnan Dockyard and Engineering Works, Shanghai, China, and launched on 10 November 1927. She was sponsored by Mrs. Ellis S. Stone and commissioned on 10 September 1928, with Lieutenant Commander James Mackey Lewis in command.

Service history

Built for duty in the Asiatic Fleet on the Yangtze River, Panay had as her primary mission the protection of American lives and property frequently threatened in the disturbances that the 1920s and 1930s brought to a China struggling to modernize, create a strong central government, and later counter Japanese aggression. Throughout Panay’s service, navigation on the Yangtze was constantly menaced by bandits and soldier outlaws, and Panay and her sister ships provided protection for American shipping and nationals, as other foreign forces did for their citizens.