MS Alfhem
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MS Alfhem was a Scandinavian cargo ship that was built in 1930 and traded for more than 30 years. In her career she passed through five successive owners, managers and names. Alfhem is her fourth name and the one by which she is most widely known.
History | |
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Name | |
Namesake |
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Owner | |
Operator |
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Port of registry |
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Builder |
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Launched | 2 November 1929 |
Completed | February 1930[1] |
Identification | |
Fate | Scrapped 22 February 1961 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Cargo ship |
Tonnage | |
Length | 386.3 ft (117.7 m)[1] |
Beam | 54.3 ft (16.6 m)[1] |
Draught | 25.7 ft (7.8 m)[1] |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | twin screws[1] |
In 1954 the CIA was engineering a coup d'état in Guatemala to replace the elected civilian government of President Jacobo Arbenz with a military dictator, Colonel Carlos Castillo. Since 1951 the US had withheld arms supplies to the Guatemalan government, and in 1953 the US blocked Guatemalan government attempts to buy arms from Canada, Germany and Rhodesia.
In the spring of 1954 Guatemala bought 2,000 tons of arms and ammunition from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and used Alfhem to ship them to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. The US regarded Alfhem's success in evading US sea and air patrols to deliver the munitions as a setback. However, it did not prevent the CIA from executing Operation PBSuccess against Guatemala.