SS John M. Brooke was a Liberty ship built in the United States during World War II. She was named after John Mercer Brooke, an early graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he perfected a "deep-sea sounding device", which was instrumental in the creation of the Transatlantic Cable. In 1861, he resigned his commission in the US Navy and joined the Confederate Navy where he was involved with the conversion of the ironclad CSS Virginia, the development of a new rifled naval gun, the Brooke rifle, and the establishment of the Confederate States Naval Academy.