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USS Norton Sound (AVM-1)

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

Career

Ordered:
Laid down:	7 September 1942
Launched:	28 November 1943
Commissioned:	8 January 1945
Decommissioned: (twice)	10 August 1959 11 December 1986
Fate:	Disposed of by Maritime Administration exchange.
Struck:	26 January 1987
General Characteristics
Displacement:	14,000 tons, full load
Length:	540 ft 5 in (164.6 m)
Beam:	69 ft 3 in (21.0 m)
Draft:	22 ft 3 in (6.7 m)
Propulsion:	steam turbines, 4 x boilers, 2 x shafts, 12,000 shp (9.0 MW)
Speed:	18 knots (33 km/h)
Complement:	1,247 as commissioned, 540 after conversion to AVM-1
Armament:	Varied over her career, especially as a test vessel
Motto:

USS Norton Sound (AV-11/AVM-1) was originally built as a Currituck-class seaplane tender built by Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in San Pedro, California. She was named for Norton Sound, a large inlet in West Alaska, between the Seward Peninsula and the mouths of the Yukon, north-east of the Bering Sea.

Contents

1 Career

1.1 World War II
1.2 1948 to 1950
1.3 1950 to 1962
1.4 1962 to 1969
1.5 1973 to 1986

2 References

3 External links

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Career

Norton Sound (AV-11) was laid down 7 September 1942; launched 28 November 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Ernest L. Gunther, wife of Rear Admiral Ernest L. Gunther; and commissioned 8 January 1945, Captain Ben Scott Custer in command.

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World War II

After Pacific shakedown, the new seaplane tender stood out from San Diego 26 February and steamed for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. She reported to Commander, Marshall-Gilbert Area for training in mid-March, and she arrived Saipan 1 April 1945 to provide seaplane tending services.

Norton Sound anchored 1 May 1945 at Aka Kaikyo, Kerama Retto, and by 21 June 1945 had assisted in splashing three hostile air raiders. Air alerts continued until midnight, 14 August 1945. Word of the Japanese surrender arrived eight hours later, and into September the tender engaged in upkeep and air operations at Okinawa.

She steamed for Sasebo, Japan 21 September 1945, returning to Okinawa one week later. Norton Sound called at Shanghai, China 1 October 1945, and by the 23rd of that month she was at Tsingtao, where she tended seaplanes until 7 November 1945. The next day she anchored at Shanghai; and, from that time until April of 1946, she remained on duty with the occupation forces between China and Japan.

Norton Sound departed Tokyo Bay 7 April 1946 for Norfolk, Virginia. After overhaul there she joined the Atlantic Fleet. She operated off the east coast until October 1947, when she steamed for San Diego to rejoin the Pacific Fleet.

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1948 to 1950

Shortly thereafter Norton Sound was selected for conversion to a mobile missile-launching platform. She entered Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in February 1948 for seven months, while special equipment was installed for handling, stowing, launching, and controlling guided missiles.

Upon completion of her modifications in October 1948, Norton Sound steamed for her new homeport of Port Hueneme, California. Enroute she conducted tests with Skyhook balloons and off southern California she underwent a very intensive missile training program. Late that fall Norton Sound successfully launched a training missile, thus marking the beginning of the Navy’s shipborne family of guided missiles.

Following installation of launching equipment for Aerobee rockets at Long Beach Naval Shipyard in February 1949, the ship steamed to equatorial waters off the South American coast and successfully launched two Aerobees. These launchings provided fundamental scientific information on the earth’s radiation belt.

On 1 July 1949, Norton Sound headed for the geomagnetic equator, some 1,500 miles (2,400 km) south of Hawaii, and conducted extensive tests with seventeen huge Skyhook balloons and nine smaller balloon clusters, all of which carried aloft scientific instrumentation packages. All of these tests had scientific value and emphasized Norton Sound's value to the Navy as a floating proving ground for developing skills and procedures for future tactical guided missile installations in combatants.

After special modifications in February and March 1950 at San Francisco Naval Shipyard, Norton Sound launched a five-ton Viking rocket 11 May in Project Reach. This rocket carried a 500 pound scientific instrumentation package to an altitude of 106.4 miles (171 km), and provided additional data on cosmic rays. Project "Reach" concluded the first phase of Norton Sound's history as a mobile missile launching platform. This first phase was devoted to extending scientific research frontiers and gaining experience prequisite to firing tactical weapons. The second phase required the application of the resultant knowledge. The newer missiles launched from the ship had a more direct bearing on the future of the Navy’s combatant missile capability.

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1950 to 1962

In the fall of 1950 Norton Sound underwent a four month overhaul at San Francisco Naval Shipyard. New handling, launching, stowage, and guidance systems were installed for operations involving the Terrier missile. She was reclassified AVM-1 on 8 August 1951. This was the first of three extensive alterations accomplished through 1955. Research, development, and evaluation launchings of Terrier and Tartar missiles continued from this period through 1958.

In 1958 Norton Sound participated in Project Argus. From a position south of the Falkland Islands she launched three rockets which carried low-yield atomic warheads. Detonation occurred at an altitude of 300 miles (480 km), and the effects were monitored by the Explorer IV satellite and by other instrumented rockets. Analysis of data from project "Argus" contributed materially to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belt.

The ship returned to San Diego in June 1959 and resumed Terrier and Tartar test launchings. She continued these operations until June 1962, when she steamed for Norfolk, Virginia. She decommissioned there 10 August.

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1962 to 1969

In November 1962 she was towed to Baltimore, Maryland for installation of the Typhon Weapon Control System. The conversion was completed early in 1964, and Norton Sound recommissioned 20 June 1964, emerging to continue tasks in weapons research.

Baltimore was designated homeport for Norton Sound, and for several months she operated in Chesapeake Bay, evaluating the Typhon System. Assigned to Port Hueneme, Calif. in July 1965, she arrived there the last day of that month. Her mission was then increased to include evaluation of the Sea Sparrow missile, the first of which she launched 13 September, 1965.

During a three month stay at Long Beach Naval Shipyard commencing 15 July 1966, all Typhon equipment was removed following discontinuance of the system. For the next two years Norton Sound evaluated various countermeasures for missile threats to naval surface forces. She also tested hardware designed to enhance ECM capabilities, and equipment involving a new concept in gyroscope design.

Norton Sound entered Long Beach Naval Shipyard 13 June 1968 for regular overhaul. The yard also installed a new, light-weight 5"/54 gun mount with associated gunfire control components for operational evaluation tests. Into 1969 she continued active in test and evaluation work with the Pacific Fleet.

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1973 to 1986

In 1973, she received the first ship-borne installation of the Aegis Combat System. This system went on to become the primary combat system in U.S. Navy cruisers and destroyers.

Norton Sound was decommissioned 11 December 1986, and struck from the Naval Register 26 January 1987. Title was transferred to the Maritime Administration 20 October 1988, and she was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

Norton Sound received two battle stars for World War II service.

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