The giant ship at Key West's Truman Waterfront may not be much to look at now, with its rusting girth bearing more and more holes every day. But the ship was a welcome sight for some of the sorest eyes in the world when it carried American troops home from Europe after the horrors of World War II and the surrender of Nazi Germany.

The vessel that all of Key West knows as the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, which will become the world's second-largest artificial reef, started its career as the USS Gen. Harry Taylor in October 1943, when it was launched in Richmond, Calif.

The Navy acquired the 522-foot transport ship in 1944 and used it to move troops and supplies between San Francisco and island military bases in the western Pacific Ocean.

The Harry Taylor also spent time crossing the Atlantic Ocean and in the spring of 1945 performed two "magic carpet" voyages that carried troops home from World War II.

She was headed for war again later that year, but this time was bound for the deadly Pacific Theater, loaded with troops and supplies. Troops aboard the ship noticed she was turning in an unexpected direction in the middle of the night on a black sea.

It was August 1945. The United States had dropped two atomic bombs. Japan had surrendered. The war was over.

The ship was turning around, and the troops were going home.

The Harry Taylor was one of the first ships to return to New York Harbor at the war's end, and some of the iconic photographs showing soldiers embracing nurses in Times Square likely featured the ship's troops, reef project founder Joe Weatherby said during his research of the ship.

She served a short stint in the Army, but the Navy re-acquired her in 1950, then mothballed her in 1958.

Weatherby and videographer Erik Hutchins have taken great pains to preserve the ship's military history, and have interviewed several soldiers who served on the Harry Taylor.

When Ed Moss first saw the ship he was to serve aboard, his first thought was, "I'm gonna get lost, and I did," Moss told Hutchins during a videotaped interview. "My second thought was, 'I wonder where she's been. She was either landing guys on islands and maybe even at D-Day.' "

Sailor Myron Wesner remembers "18 days zigzagging through the Pacific Ocean trying to avoid torpedoes."

The World War II veterans are a disappearing generation, and some of their stories are preserved and available at www.bigshipwrecks.com.

New name, new job

In 1961, the Harry Taylor was transferred to the Air Force, which renamed the ship the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg.

She was equipped with missile-tracking devices and other high-tech equipment that the United States used during the Cold War.

From 1962 through 1983, the ship spent a great deal of time in the North Pacific Ocean and nearby Bering Sea tracking Soviet missiles. It also was based in Cape Canaveral to assist with rocket launches.

By the 1970s, most of the crew aboard the Vandenberg worked for the private company RCA rather than the federal government. RCA had a contract with the United States to track missiles and rocket launches.

"This thing was mostly in the North Pacific," said Malcolm "Mac" Monroe, who worked aboard the Vandenberg from 1967 to 1979. He was in town last month to visit the old vessel and reminisce about his time aboard her.

"We built missiles as a deterrent during the Cold War, they [Soviets] built missiles as a deterrent," Monroe said. "If we didn't show up to track the missiles, they'd have been worried because it would have meant we had all the info we needed."

The ship operated about 25 miles off the Siberian Coast, and the Soviets were very familiar with it.

"I remember flying from Orlando in shorts, but with a mountaineering pack in my luggage, because I'd have to go from Orlando to Honolulu and then end up in the Bering Sea," he said.

Pat Utecht worked on the ship in the late 1960s and compared it to working for a fire department.

"I remember walking barefoot down passageways at 2 a.m. when an alarm sounded," he said.

His son, Paul Utecht, also worked on the Vandenberg.

Father and son looked up at the ship at the Truman Waterfront, remembering days when the paint was fresh, the food was bad and the bunks were occupied.

"It may take a few minutes, but we'd be able to find our way around it again pretty quickly," Paul Utecht said.

"I had the farthest forward cabin," Chuck Garrison remembered.

"I recognized it instantly," Paul Utecht said. "It's a little rough looking, but it's not leaving the state and it's not being turned into beer cans."

Retired to Hollywood

The Vandenberg was retired in 1983, and moved to the James River in Virginia.

Universal Studios leased the ship in 1996 and used it as a set for the movie "Virus," which was released in 1999.

The bullet holes that still mar the steel walls are a product of the ship's Hollywood career, not its military service. And the Russian writing marking doors, exits and other parts of the ship are residual reminders of its star-studded past with Jamie Lee Curtis.

Also in 1996, Weatherby, a dive boat captain, identified the Vandenberg as the best candidate for an artificial reef off Key West. Three years later, he founded Artificial Reefs of the Keys with Capt. Sheri Lohr, and began the long and arduous process of sinking a ship.

No one, least of all Weatherby, knew just how long and how arduous the task would be.

On April 22, tugboats gently guided the Vandenberg through the Key West Harbor, where she sits today until called to perform a final tour of duty on the ocean floor sometime between May 26 and June 1.

"This is the best thing that could have happened to it," Garrison said last month, looking up at the giant ship that has circled the world and will end up in Key West's watery backyard.

mbolen@keysnews.com