USS Palm Beach explained
U.S. Army service:| Hide Header: | yes | | Ship Name: | - FS-217
- Colonel Armond Peterson
| | Ship Builder: | Higgins Industries, New Orleans, Louisiana | | Ship In Service: | December 1944 | | Ship Out Of Service: | Placed in reserve 17 February 1956 |
| U.S. Navy service:| Hide Header: | yes | | Ship Name: | USS Palm Beach (AGER-3) | | Ship Acquired: | 18 June 1966 | | Ship Fate: | Sunk as Diving Wreck |
| Ship Type: | Design 427 coastal freighter | | Ship Displacement: | 6930NaN0 | | Ship Length: | 180feet | | Ship Beam: | 33feet | | Ship Draft: | 10feet | | Ship Propulsion: | 2 500hp GM Cleveland Division 6-278A 6 cyl V6 Diesel engines, twin screws | | Ship Speed: | 13kn | | Ship Complement: | 42 as AKL, 83 as AGER | | Ship Armament: | Two M2HB 0.5abbr=onNaNabbr=on HMG's |
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USS Palm Beach (AGER-3) was a former Army Auxiliary Aircraft Repair Ship converted to an electronic and signals intelligence ship of the
United States Navy.
Service history
She was laid down as FS-217 one of the 18 specialized Design 427 variants of the Army Freight and Supply type, officially Vessel, Supply, Aircraft Repair, Diesel, Steel, 180', at Higgins Industries in New Orleans. FS-217 was delivered to the US Army Transportation Corps operation under technical control of the United States Army Air Forces in December 1944. At some point, after delivery, the Army Air Forces named the repair vessels with FS-217 being named Colonel Armond Peterson.[1] The ship was first based in San Francisco, but later engaged in coastal surveys off the Lesser Antilles and coast of Central America. The ship was based at Balboa, Canal Zone before being placed in reserve status on 17 February 1956.
Colonel Armond Peterson was acquired and converted by the United States Navy and redesignated as Light Cargo Ship Palm Beach (AKL-45) on 18 June 1966. She was converted to a Banner class environmental research ship at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and reclassified as AGER-3. The Palm Beach was commissioned on 13 October 1967 and served two years as an ELINT/SIGINT ship, deploying in the Mediterranean and in the North Sea. She was decommissioned and later struck on 1 December 1969. She was sold to a private owner, then resold to a Panamanian company and renamed MV Oro Verde. The ship was eventually involved in drug smuggling and ran aground in the Cayman Islands. She was sunk by the Cayman Islands government as a SCUBA dive wreck.
Bibliography
- Frampton. Viktor. Morison. Samuel Loring. 1991 . Question 41/89. Warship International. International Naval Research Organization. XXVIII. 1. 0043-0374. 83–84. amp.
- Book: Grover, David . U.S. Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II . . 1987 . 0-87021-766-6 . 87015514 .
- Web site: Army FP/FS Vessels . Jackson . Ramon . 23 January 2012 . Army Ships – The Ghost Fleet . 29 March 2015 . . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120212220235/http://patriot.net/~eastlnd2/rj/fs/fs.htm . 12 February 2012 .
- Web site: Palm Beach . Naval History And Heritage Command . January 7, 2015 . Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships . Naval History And Heritage Command . 29 March 2015 . .
- Web site: USS Palm Beach (AGER-3) . NavSource Online . 25 April 2014 . NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive . NavSource Online . 29 March 2015 . .
Notes and References
- Only the USAAF named the FS types, though some of the others gained names after the war.
