USNS Watertown (T-AGM-6)
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 USNS Watertown (T-AGM-6) |
|
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 12 February 1944 |
| Launched: | 25 April 1944 |
| In Service: | 11 August 1960 |
| Removed from Service: | |
| Fate: | Disposed of by MARAD sale |
| Stricken: | 16 February 1972 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 4,512 tons light, 11,500 tons full |
| Length: | 455.3 ft (139 m) |
| Beam: | 62.2 ft (19.0 m) |
| Draft: | 28.5 ft (8.7 m) |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 15.5 knots (29 km/h) |
| Range: | range |
| Complement: | 56 |
| Armament: | |
| Motto: | |
USNS Watertown (T-AGM-6) was a unique Missile Range Instrumentation Ship in service in the United States Navy. Watertown was originally the Victory Ship Niantic Victory.
Niantic Victory was laid down on 12 February 1944 at Portland, Oregon, by the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation under a Maritime Commission contract (MCV hull 100); launched on 25 April 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Marvin Owen; and delivered to the Maritime Commission on 18 May 1944. From 1944 until 1957, Niantic Victory was operated for the Maritime Commission by a succession of contractor firms, beginning with the American-Hawaiian Steamship Line and ending with the Isbrandtsen Company in 1957. Her activities between 1957 and 1960 are a mystery. She was listed in the American Bureau of Shipping Record as still belonging to the Maritime Commission, but no operator was listed. Furthermore, she was dropped from the active list of Maritime Commission ships in the April 1957 issue of Merchant Vessel Register. All of this suggests that she went out of service early in 1957. This speculation, however, cannot be corroborated, because her name does not appear in any of the lists of ships in National Defense Reserve Fleet berthing areas.
She was propelled by a cross-compound steam turbine driving a single screw at 8500 shaft horsepower (6.3 MW).
Niantic Victory was turned over to the Navy Department in 1960 and assigned to the Military Sea Transportation Service on 11 August for conversion to a range instrumentation ship. On 27 November, she was renamed Watertown and designated AGM-6.
Watertown carried instrumentation to track and record flight events for military missile and NASA manned spacecraft, extending the coverage of the tracking network over the Pacific ocean. She was slated at one time to be part of the Apollo 8 recovery team but was dropped from the program. In 1969, she called at Pitcairn Island.
Watertown was taken out of service, returned to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, and struck from the Naval Register on 16 February 1971. She was sold on 23 May 1974 and scrapped in Pusan shortly after the sale.
See USS Watertown for other ships of this name.
[edit] References
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.
