History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | Albert J. Myer |
Namesake | Brig. Gen. Albert J. Myer |
Builder | Pusey & Jones Corp. |
Yard number |
|
Laid down | 14 April 1945 |
Launched | 7 November 1945 |
In service |
|
Stricken | 7 November 1994 |
Identification | IMO number: 8832552 |
Honors and awards | Meritorious Unit Commendation (1974), four Navy "E" Ribbons (1981, 1982, 1984, and 1985) |
Fate | Recycled in late 2005 |
Notes | Ship underwent modifications as USNS Albert J. Myer and a major modernization in 1982 with resulting changes in specifications. |
General characteristics [note 1] | |
Class and type | Neptune |
Type | S3-S2-BP1; Army cable ship, later USN Cable Repair Ship (ARC) |
Displacement | 7815 tons |
Length | 334 ft (101.8 m) |
Beam | 47.1 ft (14.4 m) |
Draft | 25.75 ft (7.8 m) |
Propulsion | 2 Skinner Uniflow Reciprocating Steam Engines; changed to diesel-electric in 1980; twin shafts |
Speed | 14 knots |
Complement | 71 civilians, 6 Navy, 25 cable/survey party |
Armament | none |
USNS Albert J. Myer (T-ARC-6) was the second of only two Maritime Commission type S3-S2-BP1 ships built for the US Army near the end of World War II intended to support Army Signal Corps communications cables. She is named for Brig. Gen. Albert J. Myer, the founder of the Signal Corps. The other ship was the William H. G. Bullard, later USS Neptune, which Myer later joined in naval service.
The new ship was laid up in 1946 until reactivated by the Army in 1952 for service out of Seattle, Washington maintaining the Alaska Communications System that served civilian as well as military needs. USACS Albert J. Myer also saw service on other defense and civilian cables and supported the Navy's Project Caesar, the unclassified name for building and maintaining the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) that tracked Soviet submarines.
The ship was transferred on 13 June 1966 to the Navy for service as USNS Albert J. Myer (T-ARC-6) assigned to Project Caesar, though supporting other military systems on occasion. Albert J. Myer, along with sister ship Neptune, were the only ships in the Navy designed and built as cable ships. Unlike Neptune, which had been commissioned by the Navy, Albert J. Myer was never commissioned serving entirely as a civil service crewed ship under the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS)/Military Sealift Command (MSC). [note 2] Both underwent modifications and a major rebuild in the early 1980s. Albert J. Myer was deactivated in 1994.
Maritime Commission hull 2558 was laid down on 14 April 1945 by Pusey & Jones Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware as the yard's hull number 1109. [1] [2] [note 3] Albert J. Myer was launched on 7 November 1945, and sponsored by Mrs. Grace Salisbury Ingles, the wife of Major General Harry C. Ingles, commanding officer of the Army Signal Corps. [1]
The ship's assignments were typically to transport, deploy, retrieve and repair submarine cables. In later Naval service functions specified were towing a cable plow, a large devices used to bury cable in coastal areas to protect it from damage from trawls and other hazards. Additional functions not directly related to cable work were towing acoustic projectors and conducting acoustic, hydrographic, and bathymetric surveys. [3]
Since World War II ended some eight months before her completion, the Albert J. Myer was delivered to the Maritime Commission on 17 May 1946 and placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, James River Group, Lee Hall, Virginia. The ship was again taken in by the US Army on 7 February 1952. [1] [4] The ship was reactivated at Baltimore, Maryland with a crew recruited from Seattle, Washington where the ship would be based and put into service as USACS Albert J. Myer operated by the U.S. Army Transportation Corps for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. [5] [6]
Albert J. Myer's primary mission at the time was maintenance of the Alaska Communications System which handled both military and commercial traffic to Alaska. [5] Two cables linking Port Angeles, Washington and Ketchikan, Alaska with forty-eight circuits were laid in 1956. [7] The ship also worked on projects for the Air Force and the Navy, including substantial assignment to Project Caesar in support of the Sound Surveillance System. [8] During 1957 the ship laid cable for the U.S. Air Force between Thule, Greenland and Baffin Island with a landing at Cape Dyer. The Cape Dyer landing, subject to damage by gounding icebergs, was bypassed by the ship in 1964. [9] [10]
In 1961 the ship laid communications cable connecting the Pacific islands of Kwajalein, Ennylabegan (one of the islands in the Kwajalein atoll), Gugeegue, Eniwetok and Roi-Namur supporting the Army's then Kwajalein Missile Range, now the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site for Nike Zeus tests. The first phase was laying thirty miles [note 4] of entrenched cable connecting the islands in the Kwajalein group and then another fifty-five miles of coaxial ocean cable connecting Eniwetok and Roi-Namur to the Kwajalein network. The entrenched cable path had to be first cleared of World War II era ordinance and the trench prepared by Navy underwater demolition team. [11]
To preserve communications the ship was also available for emergency repairs to commercial cables. For example, the cable ship repaired a break in the Cable and Wireless cable between Fanning Island and Bamfield, Vancouver Island, British Columbia that was a British around the world link. The only other cable ship available in the northwest Pacific was also an Army ship. [5] Albert J. Myer laid the shore ends of the Hampden, Newfoundland terminus of CANTAT-1 (CANadian TransAtlantic Telephone cable). [12]
During March and April 1964 the ship conducted an extensive, detailed magnetic survey for the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office northeast of Hispanola. [13] [14]
The cable layer was returned to the Maritime Administration (MARAD), 13 June 1966, and simultaneously transferred to the Navy where she served as the cable repair ship operated by the Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS Albert J. Myer (T-ARC-6) [6] permanently assigned to Project Caesar. [8]
Only two of the four cable ships available for Project Caesar had been designed and built as cable ships, the others being conversions and lacking some critical features needed for cable operations. The larger Aeolus and Thor were not suitable for modernization while Albert J. Myer and Neptune had cable ship features, including deeper draft than the larger ships, that made them suitable candidates for modernization. [15] Albert J. Myer and Neptune were extensively modernized in 1980 by Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, Maryland. This included new turbo-electric engines replacing two Skinner Uniflow Reciprocating Steam Engines and modern cable machinery. The two ships had been the last ships in the Navy to operate using reciprocating steam engines. [3]
The ship performed cable repair duties all over the world until 1994, when she'd been in active service for nearly 42 years. During her career, she received a Meritorious Unit Commendation (1974), and four Navy E ribbons (1981, 1982, 1984, and 1985). [16]
Albert J. Myer was deactivated in 1994 entering the James River Reserve Fleet at Lee Hall, Virginia on 31 March 1994. [4] On 1 April 1998 the Navy transferred title to the Maritime Administration for disposal. [17] The ship was dismantled and recycled by International Shipbreaking Ltd of Brownsville, TX in 2005. [12] [18]
CANTAT-1 was the first Canadian transatlantic telephone cable, between Hampden, Newfoundland and eventually Grosses-Roches, Quebec and Oban, United Kingdom, which followed on from the success of TAT-1. It was conceived and approved as stage one of a proposed commonwealth round the world cable and was done at a cost of $8,500,000. The system was jointly owned by Cable & Wireless and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunication Corporation (COTC).
Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was the original name for a submarine detection system based on passive sonar developed by the United States Navy to track Soviet submarines. The system's true nature was classified with the name and acronym SOSUS classified as well. The unclassified name Project Caesar was used to cover the installation of the system and a cover story developed regarding the shore stations, identified only as a Naval Facility (NAVFAC), being for oceanographic research. The name changed to Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) in 1985, as the fixed bottom arrays were supplemented by the mobile Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) and other new systems. The commands and personnel were covered by the "oceanographic" term until 1991 when the mission was declassified. As a result, the commands, Oceanographic System Atlantic and Oceanographic System Pacific became Undersea Surveillance Atlantic and Undersea Surveillance Pacific, and personnel were able to wear insignia reflecting the mission.
USNS Kingsport (T-AG-164) was built as SS Kingsport Victory, a United States Maritime Commission VC2-S-AP3 (Victory) type cargo ship. During the closing days of World War II the ship was operated by the American Hawaiian Steamship Company under an agreement with the War Shipping Administration. After a period of layup the ship was operated as USAT Kingsport Victory by the Army under bareboat charter effective 8 July 1948. When Army transports were transferred to the Navy's Military Sea Transportation Service the ship continued as USNS Kingsport Victory (T-AK-239), a cargo transport. On 14 November 1961, after conversion into the first satellite communication ship, the ship was renamed Kingsport, reclassified as a general auxiliary, and operated as USNS Kingsport (T-AG-164).
A cable layer or cable ship is a deep-sea vessel designed and used to lay underwater cables for telecommunications, for electric power transmission, military, or other purposes. Cable ships are distinguished by large cable sheaves for guiding cable over bow or stern or both. Bow sheaves, some very large, were characteristic of all cable ships in the past, but newer ships are tending toward having stern sheaves only, as seen in the photo of CS Cable Innovator at the Port of Astoria on this page. The names of cable ships are often preceded by "C.S." as in CS Long Lines.
USNS Mizar (MA-48/T-AGOR-11/T-AK-272) was a vessel of the United States Navy. She was named after the star Mizar.
SS Albert M. Boe was a Liberty ship laid down on 11 July 1945 at the East Yard of New England Shipbuilding Corporation in Portland, Maine, as a boxed aircraft transport. The ship is notable as the final liberty ship built.
Albert Meyer may refer to:
USS Thor was a cable repair ship that supported Project Caesar, the unclassified name for installation of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). Originally the Artemis-class attack cargo ship Vanadis (AKA-49) which was briefly in commission from 9 July 1945 to 27 March 1946, it was converted in 1955 after nine years in the reserve fleet.
USS Turandot (AKA-47) was an Artemis-class attack cargo ship named after the minor planet 530 Turandot, discovered by Max Wolf in 1904 and named by him after the title character in the Puccini opera of the same name.
USCGC Yamacraw (WARC-333) was a United States Coast Guard Cable Repair Ship. The ship was built for the Army Mine Planter Service as U. S. Army Mine Planter Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray (MP-9) delivered December 1942. On 2 January 1945 the ship was acquired by the Navy, converted to an Auxiliary Minelayer and commissioned USS Trapper (ACM-9) on 15 March 1945. Trapper was headed to the Pacific when Japan surrendered. After work in Japanese waters the ship headed for San Francisco arriving there 2 May 1946 for transfer to the Coast Guard.
USNS Neptune (ARC-2), was the lead ship in her class of cable repair ships in U.S. Naval service. The ship was built by Pusey & Jones Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware, Hull Number 1108, as the USACS William H. G. Bullard named for Rear Adm. William H. G. Bullard. She was the first of two Maritime Commission type S3-S2-BP1 ships built for the US Army Signal Corps near the end of World War II. The other ship was the Albert J. Myer, which later joined her sister ship in naval service as the USNS Albert J. Myer (T-ARC-6).
USS Aeolus (ARC-3) began service as USS Turandot (AKA-47), an Artemis-class attack cargo ship built by the Walsh-Kaiser Co., Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1954 she was converted into a cable repair ship to support Project Caesar, the unclassified name for installation of the Sound Surveillance System SOSUS. Aeolus was the first of two ships, the other being USS Thor (ARC-4), to be converted into cable ships. Aeolus performed cable duties for nearly thirty years, from 1955 to 1973 as a commissioned ship and from 1973 until 1985 as the civilian crewed USNS Aeolus (T-ARC-3) of the Military Sealift Command (MSC). The ship was retired in 1985 and sunk as an artificial reef in 1988.
David C. Shanks was a troop transport that served with the US Army during World War II as USAT David C. Shanks, and during the Korean War with the US Navy's Military Sea Transportation Service as the USNS David C. Shanks (T-AP-180).
USS President Monroe (AP-104) was a President Jackson-class attack transport. that served with the US Navy during World War II. She was named after Founding Father and the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe.
The Alaska Communications System (ACS), also known as the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS), was a system of cables and telegraph lines authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1900 and constructed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The communications lines were to serve both military and civilian needs in the territory of Alaska. By 1904, ACS comprised some 2,100 miles (3,400 km) of undersea cable, over 1,400 miles (2,300 km) of land lines, and a wireless segment across at least 107 miles (172 km). On May 15, 1936 WAMCATS was renamed the U.S. Army Alaska Communications System. The Alaska Communications System remained under the control of the Army Signal Corps until 1962 when it was taken over by the U.S. Air Force. The ACS handled the radioteletype, radio telephone, 500 kHz ship-to-shore frequencies, collected communications intelligence, and other services for more than half a century in Alaska.
USS Nashawena (AG-142/YAG-35) was a U.S. Navy cable layer constructed during World War II for the Army as the wooden-hulled self-propelled barge BSP 2008. The barge was completed converted to cable work for U.S. Army Signal Corps as the cable ship Col. William. A. Glassford supporting the Alaska Communications System in the shallow island waters of Alaska. She was transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1947 as a miscellaneous auxiliary and assigned to cable-laying duties for the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
USNS Flyer (T-AG-178), was a type C2-S-B1 cargo ship of the United States Navy, built for the Maritime Commission (MC) as Water Witch in service under charter by the commission to several lines until purchased in 1946 by United States Lines and renamed American Flyer. After being placed in the Reserve Fleet 14 December 1964 the title was transferred to the Navy for use as a deep ocean bathymetric survey ship supporting installation of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). The Navy placed the ship in service 9 February 1965 with the name Flyer given on 22 March. The ship operated in that role until 1975.
USNS Zeus (T-ARC-7) is the first cable ship specifically built for the United States Navy. Though planned to be the first of two ships of her class, the second ship was not built, leaving Zeus as the only ship of her class. She is capable of laying 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of cable at depths of up to 9,000 feet (2,700 m).
HMTS Monarch, launched on 8 August 1945 and completed during February 1946, was the fourth cable ship with that name. The ship was built for the General Post Office (GPO) for the laying and repair of submarine communications cable and was the largest cable ship in the world when completed and the first cable ship to have all electric cable machinery.
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