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Updated September 23, 2006
ARC-1, ARC-5 & Nashawena (AG-142)
Extracts from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships,
some additional information
and
Short discussion of Army Coast Artillery and Signal Corps cable ships
with complete list of the ARC designation.
Portunus (ARC-1)
Portunus (ARC-1) had a predecessor with an interesting history as a motor torpedo boat tender down in the Southwest Pacific. The DNAFS entry for that ship, Portunus (AGP-4), is well worth reading.
The second ship, Portunus (ARC-1), started as LSM-275 commissioned 6 October 1944 in time to get into the last stages of the war, landing troops in Okinawa. It wasn't until 1952 that she became the leader of the ARC ships. That year saw the birth of post war antisubmarine activity and the early test stages of what was to become an extensive surveillance system. It is probable that this ship participated in at least some of that activity.
See more on these two ships at NavSource:
Yamacraw (ARC-5)
ex-U.S. Coast Guard vessel Yamacraw (WARC-333)
ex-Navy vessel Trapper (ACM-9)
ex-Army AMPS Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray
with a brief appearance at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a geophysical research vessel
USS Yamacraw (ARC-5)
Brooklyn Navy Yard, Brooklyn N.Y. circa 1964
Photo provided by three brothers who sailed aboard Yamacraw: Victor, Darrell and Barnie Edens
Yamacraw (ARC-5) has an interesting history and something in common with Neptune and Albert J. Myer -- she started life in the Army. She was originally built to plant and tend controlled defensive minefields for the Army Coast Artillery Corps' Army Mine Planter Service (AMPS). The AMPS was responsible for the coastal defense mine fields until the function was transferred to the Navy in 1949. Another ship (following description) has an even closer common origin with Myer and Neptune.
The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry for Yamacraw has a nice photo of the vessel as WARC-333 and largely points back to Trapper. Also see the NavSource page for ARC-5 for other photos. Ship characteristics from DANFS on Trapper (ACM-9) are: dp. 1,320; l. 188'2"; b. 37'0"; dr. 12'6"; s. 12.5 k (tl.); cpl. 69; a. 1 40mm.; cl. Chimo.
* * * *
The following is in addition to DANFS:
Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray was one of eleven mine planters built in 1942. Five more were built in 1943. All were built by the same company at the same location for the Army and assigned to the Coast Artillery Corps for use in building and maintaining the defensive controlled mine fields. These were the first ships built for the purpose since the Lt. Col. Ellery W. Niles (later the F.V. Hunt) in 1937. These supplemented eight ships, the latest built in 1919, already working the minefields.
A reader of this page reports an interesting sidelight not recorded in DANFS: "The Murray was sunk off Cape Henry on 1 Feb 1944 after striking a mine, was raised by the USN and repaired (I do not think that she returned to Army service before being taken over by the Navy as Trapper." (David Asprey in e-mail on 10 Jan. 2000)
Grover's U.S. Army ships and Watercraft of World War II states: "Murray of 1942--became USS Trapper, ACM-9, served briefly in Pacific; became Coast Guard cable ship Yamacraw, WARC 333, in 1946; transferred to Navy in 1959 as USS Yamacraw, ARC-5; stricken in 1967 and reportedly scrapped."
The Army's mine responsibility was only for controlled mines associated with the coastal guns and other shore defenses. These ships, along with other smaller types working the mine fields, were the only Army vessels engaged with weapons rather than transport or support services. Controlled mines are linked to shore with electrical systems so these ships had light cable capability. They were thus ideal candidates for conversion to short range, limited capacity cable ships.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's web site shows the Yamacraw had a brief life as a leased geophysical research vessel that made eleven North Atlantic and Mediterranean cruises. The page contains a small but clear photograph of the ship as WARC-333.
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Nashawena (AG-142)
Nashawena is the ship with most in common with Albert J. Myer and William H. G. Bullard origins -- she was built as the Army Signal Corps cable layer William A. Glassford.
In addition to the DANFS entry for Nashawena there is a very small bit of additional information. She never carried an "ARC" designation. Jane's 1966/1967 mentions "The cable repair ship of the wooden type, Nashawena, YAG 35 (ex-AG 142) was stricken in 1960." She then apparently had a continuing role in cable work as the Omega (U.S. Undersea Cable Corp.). See the following for more on Nashawena's "of the wooden type" Army self propelled barge cable vessels.
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Army Cable Ships
The Army operated a considerable fleet of cable ships. One type supported the Coast Artillery Corps controlled mine fields and was a small, coastal design under the Coast Artillery. Another type, associated with the Signal Corps, was generally larger and supported communications. The Pacific areas had fewer commercial cables and military cables were more common than in the Atlantic. In the Pacific these ships were engaged in linking the islands sprinkled between the West Coast and the Philippines. U.S. Army ships and Watercraft of World War II lists eleven of these communication cable ships (See under Signal Corps on the Army Ships pages).
The list includes Albert J. Myer and William H. G. Bullard (later Neptune) -- the last of these ships to be built (1946). The Col. Wm. A. Glassford, later Nashawena (above) was one of two wooden hulled self propelled barges converted to Army cable ships. The other was the Col. Basil O. Lenoir. Both apparently worked largely in Alaskan waters on the Alaskan military cables. Lenoir stayed in Alaska doing cable work as an Air Force vessel when the Air Force Communications Service took over the cables. So now we have a case of the Army cable layer becoming an Air Force cable layer!
Glassford and Lenoir were interesting conversions from self propelled barge (Army class "BSP") into wooden hull, triple screwed, very shallow draft cable vessels. Their continued use after the war emergency may be partly due to these unusual features. Cable ships are typically deep draft and the connection between the deep ocean cable and shore has to be accomplished by various inventive means, very often using barges of some type.
I can only speculate, but it seems that little self propelled barge/ships equipped with cable machinery drawing only six or seven feet could be very useful in island chains in general and elsewhere in filling the gap between the deep ocean end and shore. That draft would get them in close enough to easily float the shore end in and then run out to splice into a buoyed sea end or make a full run to a nearby island to repeat the shore tie without intermediate splices.
The following e-mail from Duane McEwen confirms the usefulness of Col. Basil O. Lenoir's barge hull. He, along with the ship, was Army and then Air Force, apparently for the same reason--ACS was transferred from Army to Air Force. He was "in the Army ACS from 1961 to 1963, and then got out of the Army and became a civilian employee of the US Air Force, still working for the ACS in Alaska." He describes the Lenoir in a shore landing application that really did not occur to me, but is very sensible if hull, shore and tides are right:
Your thoughts on the advantages of using a barge type ship in coastal Alaskan waters is right on the money. The Lenoir was reportedly deliberately run aground (on a rising tide) at Lena Point Alaska, when submarine communication cable was laid from there to a light house at Seninel Island. The cable was brought ashore and tied to a large spruce tree, and the ship backed slowly off. I was in Juneau a year ago, and the end of the cable is still tied to the spruce tree in what is now a borough (Alaska has boroughs instead of counties) park.
There were many submarine communication cables in Alaska during the first part of the last century (1900 - 1950). Many of these were put in during WWII, and were never publicized. Even though I worked in the communications field, there were many that I did not know anything about. Marine charts showed submarine cable areas, but little else was known. For instance, there was a cable that was laid from Gustavus to Hawk Inlet, and across a narrow stretch of land from there to Youngs Bay, and from there to the Juneau area. A military air field [thus Army Air Forces at the time] was built at Gustavus during WW II, so I assume that the cable was built then. I walked part of the on shore cable route from Hawk Inlet to Youngs Bay during a hunting trip in the 60s. The cable was laid on the ground thru the woods (a wilderness area). It appeared to be a standard submarine type cable. I do not know when that cable was used, or when it fell into disuse.
He further mentions that the ship operated out of Seattle, going to Alaska for the cable work and then returning and was "reportedly sent to the ship breakers in Bellingham, Washington in about 1975."
The Army's fleet was pretty much disbanded or converted to Navy by 1950 as the postwar drive toward integrated services and the Department of Defense accelerated and became final. Unfortunately it appears the Army then decided to really dispense with ships and discarded most of the records for its ships, including the individual ship histories.
In the table below the ARC # link is to the NavSource page that will have specifications and photographs. Names link to the ship's DANFS entry. Two additional links on name are to pages at this site that will have my more personal view of a ship I knew.
ARC List
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Copyright © 1999, 2001 by Ramon Jackson
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