| Career (Ethiopia) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Ethiopia (A-01) |
| Namesake: | The country of Ethiopia |
| Builder: | Lake Washington Shipyard, Houghton, Washington |
| Laid down: | 13 July 1942 |
| Launched: | 4 October 1942 |
| Completed: | January 1944 |
| Acquired: | January 1962 on loan March 1976 by outright sale |
| Decommissioned: | 1991 |
| Fate: | Fled to Yemen May 1991;[1] hulked there[2] Sold for scrapping 1993[3] |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Training ship |
| Displacement: | 1,766 tons (light) 2,800 tons (full load) |
| Length: | 310 ft 8 in (94.69 m) |
| Beam: | 41 ft 0 in (12.50 m) |
| Draft: | 13 ft 5 in (4.09 m) (lim.) |
| Installed power: | 5,600 bhp (4,200 kW) |
| Propulsion: | Two Fairbanks-Morse 38D 8 1/8-10 diesel engines, two shafts |
| Speed: | 18.2 knots (33.7 km/h) |
| Complement: | 215 (ship's company as U.S. Navy seaplane tender) 367 (total accommodation as U.S. Navy seaplane tender) |
| Sensors and processing systems: |
RCA SPS-12 air search radar I-band navigation radar RCA/General Electric Mark 26 I/J-band fire control radar |
| Armament: | 1 x 127-millimeter (5-inch) 38-caliber gun mount 2 x twin 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun mounts 1 x single 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun mount |
Ethiopia (A-01) was a training ship of the Ethiopian Navy in commission from 1962 to 1991. She was Ethiopia's largest naval ship throughout her time in service, which extended across the final 29 years of the Ethiopian Navy's operational existence.
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Ethiopia was built as the United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Orca (AVP-49). Commissioned in 1944, she served in the New Guinea campaign and Philippines campaign during World War II, and at Okinawa and the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests post-war before being decommissioned in 1947. Recommissioned in 1951, she served in the Pacific until decommissioned again in 1960.
In January 1962, Orca was loaned to Ethiopia under the Military Assistance Program and was commissioned as the training ship Ethiopia (A-01). Sold outright to Ethiopia in March 1976, Ethiopia was the Ethiopian Navy's largest ship from her arrival in 1962 until the navy was disestablished in 1991.
In May 1991, at the end of the Ethiopian Civil War and Eritrean War of Independence, the independence of Eritrea made Ethiopia a landlocked country. Ethiopia was among ten Ethiopian Navy ships to escape to Yemen.[4]
Discussion of the possibility of the Ethiopian Navy surviving as an operational force based in Eritrea or Djibouti came to nothing; the Ethiopian Navy was disestablished. Never again operational after arriving in Yemen in 1991, Ethiopia survived as a hulk there[5] until she was sold for scrap in 1993.[6]