USS Altair (AD-11)
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The USS Altair (AD-11) was the lead ship of a class of two destroyer tenders of the US Navy in World War II .
Construction and technical data
The ship was on 18 December 1918, as the shipyard Skinner & Eddy in Seattle on behalf of the United States Shipping Board (USSB) to set keel . It was a single-screw cargo steamer with a steel hull. It was on May 10, 1919, the name Edisto from the stack , the Maritime Administration of the 13th Naval District was placed under the identification number received ID 4156 and was intended for service as coal freighter. After a short service under the USSB, the Edisto was transferred to the US Navy on October 29, 1921. She was renamed Altair on November 2, 1921 , classified as a destroyer tender, and entered service by the US Navy on December 6, 1921. In the New York Naval Shipyard , the ship was equipped with machines and material from closed war material factories over the next nine months. The final equipment was completed in November 1922. The ship was 129.16 m long and 16.54 m wide, had a 6.27 m draft and displaced 6350 tons (empty) and 10160 tons (fully loaded). A steam turbine and a screw allowed a speed of 10.5 knots . The ship was armed with four 12.5 cm cannons; two 3-inch cannons were approved for commissioning, but were never installed. The crew consisted of 481 men.
fate
1921-1941
The Altair was assigned to the Destroyer Squadron 12 (Destroyer Flotilla 12) in San Diego , which consisted of a total of 19 boats. From 1922 to 1939 the ship followed the boats of his flotilla and carried out the necessary maintenance work. In 1927 it took part in the transport of 3,000 men from the United States Marine Corps to Nicaragua . When the Second World War broke out in Europe in September 1939, the ship was in San Diego , but was moved to Pearl Harbor in March 1940 to serve the destroyers stationed there. With the exception of a shipyard overhaul in the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Northern California from April 6 to June 6, 1941, the Altair provided this service until September 30, 1941.
1941-1946
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In early November 1941 the Altair went through the Panama Canal to Hamilton (Bermuda) , from where it supported the destroyers operating in the North Atlantic until June 1942 . Then she moved to Trinidad and served the destroyers stationed in the Caribbean until July 1943 . After another stay in the shipyard in July – August in Norfolk (Virginia) , she went back to Bermuda to support the destroyers and destroyers escort of the so-called "shakedown group" (Task Group 23.1), who carried out their test drives there. In March 1945 she was transferred to Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , where she was stationed until May 3, 1945. She was then prepared for service in the Pacific at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard . The ship left Norfolk on July 26th, but stayed in the Panama Canal Zone from August 4th to 15th as the war with Japan ended. On August 15, the Altair set out for Pearl Harbor, where it arrived on September 6 and performed tender services there. On April 26, 1946 she went to San Francisco and from there to the Mare Island Navy Yard, where she was decommissioned on June 21.
The End
On July 8, she was retired and transferred to the Maritime Commission , and on July 21, she was removed from the US Navy shipping register. Then she was in the Suisun Bay , where the US Navy had laid up numerous decommissioned warships in the so-called "Mothball Fleet" . On March 9, 1948, the ship was sold and then scrapped.