![cover image](https://wikiwandv2-19431.kxcdn.com/_next/image?url=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/H97396.jpg/640px-H97396.jpg&w=640&q=50)
USS Avocet (AVP-4)
Minesweeper of the United States Navy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Avocet (AM-19/AVP-4) was a Lapwing-class minesweeper initially acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.
![]() USS Avocet in foreground during the Attack on Pearl Harbor. USS Nevada is in the background, with a large American flag on her stern. | |
History | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Builder | Baltimore Drydock and Shipbuilding Co. |
Cost | $766,914 (hull and machinery)[1] |
Laid down | 13 September 1917 |
Launched | 9 March 1918 |
Commissioned |
|
Decommissioned | 10 December 1945 |
Reclassified | AM-19 to AVP-4 8 September 1925 |
Stricken | 3 January 1946 |
Honours and awards | Avocet (AVP-4) earned one World War II battle star for her participation in the defense of the fleet at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 |
Fate | Sold to the Construction and Power Machine Co., Brooklyn, N.Y., on 12 December 1946 for use as a hulk. |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Lapwing-class minesweeper |
Displacement | 840 tons (853 tonnes) as AVP-4 |
Length | 187 ft 10 in (57.25 m) |
Beam | 35 ft 5 in (10.80 m) |
Draught | 15 ft (4.6 m) |
Propulsion | Triple Reciprocating engine |
Speed | 14 kn |
Complement | 75 |
Armament | 2 × 3"/50 caliber guns |
Armor | None |
Avocet was commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard, on 17 September 1918, as a minesweeper.[2] Recommissioned on 8 September 1925 as a small seaplane tender, USS Avocet (AVP-4) was present during the Pearl Harbor attack on 7 December 1941. The ship survived the war, and was sold as a hulk on 6 December 1946.[2] In June, 1937 USS Avocet carried a science team to Canton Island (in the Phoenix Islands, midway between Hawaii and Fiji, at the time a British Protectorate) for the total solar eclipse. There, the Avocet and HMS Wellington, carrying a British science team, fired shots across each others bows in a dispute over the choice anchorage of the island which the Americans, arriving first, had claimed. The dispute was quickly smoothed over at the highest levels in both governments.