Circle Line Boat: VII

VII started out as USS LCI(L)-191, a 246-ton Landing Craft Infantry built at Port Newark, New Jersey, and commissioned in early February 1943. She crossed the Atlantic that spring and took part in the invasion of Sicily that July. Over the next thirteen months, she went on to serve in the amphibious assaults on Salerno, Anzio, Elba, and the invasion of southern France, earning three battle stars for her World War II service.

She returned to the U.S. in mid-1945, was briefly redesignated as a gunboat conversion candidate before the war's end made that unnecessary, and was decommissioned at Staten Island in April 1946.

The Maritime Commission sold her to Circle Line in June 1948, and she went through a few names before settling on her final one: first Highlander, then New Yorker in 1950, then Circle Line Sightseer VII in 1955, and finally Circle Line VII in 1957.

[IMAGE PLACEMENT: vintage postcard, "The Sightseer"] Image file: s-l1200.jpg Caption: A vintage postcard showing one of Circle Line's early vessels during its "Sightseer" naming era, the same period several ex-military boats, including VII, briefly shared this name before switching to today's numbered format. Alt text: Vintage postcard of a Circle Line Sightseeing Yachts vessel named "Sightseer" passing the Statue of Liberty

That "Sightseer" phase wasn't unique to VII. Several other ex-military boats in the fleet, including X and XII, briefly carried the "Circle Line Sightseer" name too, before Circle Line settled on the simpler numbered format still used today.

VII has since been retired from service.