The photograph below shows Way No. 5 in Yard No. 1 at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond California. The Victory Ship with the Bunting on the Bow is the Nicaragua Victory. You can see the Hull listed as V-534 in the foreground of the photo next to the Way No. 5. TheShipbuildingHistory.com website lists the Nicaragua Victory as Hull #534 and the Type as VC2-S-AP3. The keel was laid on May 16, 1944 and the ship was launched on August 10, 1944. The Nicaragua Victory was delivered on September 23, 1944. The ship was operated by the Isthmian Steamship company in 1944 and 1945 for the U.S. War Shipping Administration in San Francisco . The Nicaragua Victory was sold private in 1946.
On February 24, 1946 the Nicaragua Victory was anchored in the Cooper River in Charleston, South Carolina. The ship drifted while at anchor in a gale and slammed into the Grace Bridge, taking out a 240 foot section of the bridge. A family of five was killed when their car plunged into the river. Their bodies were found in the car when it was recovered a month later. The tragic incident is well covered in the book, “The Great Cooper River Bridge”
In 1946 the Nicaragua Victory was renamed the Fletero and was operated by the Compania Argentina de Nav.Dodero, Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1949 ownership moved to Flota Argentina de Nav. de Ultramar, Buenos Aires and in 1961 Empresa Lineas Maritimas Argentinas, Buenos Aires. The Nicaragua Victory was scrapped in Argentina in 1979.