USS Nashawena
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USS Nashawena (AG-142/YAG-35) was a U.S. Navy cable layer constructed during World War II for the Army as the wooden-hulled self-propelled barge BSP 2008. The barge was completed converted to cable work for U.S. Army Signal Corps as the cable ship Col. William. A. Glassford supporting the Alaska Communications System in the shallow island waters of Alaska.[note 1] She was transferred to the U.S. Navy in 1947 as a miscellaneous auxiliary and assigned to cable-laying duties for the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
History | |
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United States | |
Name |
|
Namesake |
|
Owner |
|
Builder | Seattle Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Corporation, Seattle, Washington |
Laid down | 1943 |
Acquired | from the U.S. Army, 20 June 1947 |
Commissioned | 20 June 1947 as USS Nashawena (AG-142) |
Decommissioned | 17 August 1953, at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California |
Reclassified | YAG-35, 9 September 1947 |
Homeport | Mare Island, California |
Fate | Sold, 1 June 1960, renamed Omega, scrapped 1975? |
Notes | Official number: 285876 (after commercial sale) |
General characteristics | |
Type | cable layer |
Tonnage | 602 tons |
Length | 154 ft (46.9 m) |
Beam | 36 ft (11.0 m) |
Draft | 6 ft (1.8 m) |
Propulsion | 3 x diesel, 3 screw |
Speed | 10 knots |
Complement | 29 officers and enlisted |
Armament | none |
Notes | Flat bottomed barge, capable of beaching. |
The ship was sold to commercial interests in 1960 becoming United States Underseas Cable Corporation's Omega in 1961. Omega did cable work in the Navy's Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) and laid shore ends for part of the Air Force's Atlantic Missile Range and the Vietnam Coastal Network connecting coastal centers in Vietnam and a terminus in Thailand. In 1971 the ship, along with the company's larger cable layer were sold to a Liberian registered company set up to buy the two ships. Omega ceased cable operations after the sale and may have been scrapped in 1975.