RFA Fort Duquesne (A229) was a Fort ship and later an air stores ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Originally built as SS Queensborough Park for the Canadian Merchant Navy, the vessel was transferred to the British Ministry of War Transport before completion.
The vessel served in Atlantic convoys for the remainder of the Second World War and was transferred to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in 1947. She was subsequently used for sea trials of the Westland WS-51 Dragonfly helicopter and played the role of the German tanker Tacoma in the 1956 film The Battle of the River Plate.
Construction
Fort Duquesne was built by West Coast Shipbuilders in Vancouver as SS Queensborough Park for the Canadian Merchant Navy as part of the Canadian government's Park ship program. The vessel was a "Victory" type cargo ship.
In 1955 she starred in the film The Battle of the River Plate, playing the German freighter Tacoma, which took the crew off the cruiser Admiral Graf Spee before she was scuttled off Montevideo.
Fate
Fort Duquesne was decommissioned in April 1967 and put in reserve at Chatham. She arrived at the Scheldt for demolition at Tamise on 29 June 1967.
During World War II, 28 were lost to enemy action, and four were lost due to accidents. Many of the surviving 166 ships passed to the United States Maritime Commission. The last recorded scrapping was in 1985, and two ships, the former and , were listed on Lloyd's Register until 1992.