USS Altair (AD-11)

	USS Altair in 1921.
History
United States
Name	SS Edisto
Operator	United States Shipping Board
Builder	Skinner & Eddy Corporation, Seattle Washington
Laid down	18 December 1918
Launched	10 May 1919
Fate	Transferred to U.S. Navy 29 October 1921; Delivered to U.S. Navy 5 December 1921;
United States
Name	USS Altair
Namesake	Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila
Operator	United States Navy
Acquired	Transferred to U.S. Navy 29 October 1921; Named USS Altair 2 November 1921; Delivered to U.S. Navy 5 December 1921;
Commissioned	6 December 1921
Decommissioned	8 July 1946
Stricken	21 July 1946
Fate	Transferred to United States Maritime Commission 8 July 1946; Sold 9 March 1948; Scrapped;
General characteristics ; as destroyer tender
Type	Altair-class destroyer tender
Displacement	6,250 long tons (6,350 t) light; 10,000 long tons (10,160 t) full;
Length	423 ft 9 in (129.16 m)
Beam	54 ft 3 in (16.54 m)
Draft	20 ft 7 in (6.27 m)
Propulsion	Geared turbine, single propeller
Speed	10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph)
Complement	481 officers and enlisted
Armament	4 × 5 in (130 mm) guns; 2 × 3 in (76 mm) guns (authorized but never installed);

USS Altair (AD-11) was the lead ship of a class of three United States Navy destroyer tenders.^[1] She was named for

Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, and was in commission from 1921 to 1946, seeing service during World War II

.

Service history

United States Shipping Board, 1919–1921

Altair was

New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York

, the following day, 6 December 1921.

1921–1939

Mare Island Navy Yard at6 Mare Island in Vallejo

, California.

In 1925, Altair supported her assigned destroyers in Hawaiian waters during joint U.S. Army-U.S. Navy maneuvers designed to test Hawaii's defenses, and that summer and autumn, when the

Marine Observation Squadron 1 and a rifle company from San Diego to Corinto, a port on the west coast of Nicaragua, reaching their destination on 16 February 1927. Altair then resumed her operations providing services to the destroyers of Squadron 12, accompanying them to Narragansett Bay

in Rhode Island for tactical exercises before ultimately returning once more to San Diego.

1939–1941

When World War II began in

Fleet Problem XXI

.

Overhauled at Mare Island Navy Yard from 6 April to 6 June 1941, Altair returned to Pearl Harbor on 26 June 1941. For the next three months she discharged her duty there until she departed Hawaiian waters on 30 September 1941 for the U.S. West Coast. Pausing briefly at San Diego from 12 to 18 October 1941, the ship pushed south, transited the Panama Canal on 2 and 3 November 1941, and arrived at her new duty station, Hamilton, Bermuda, on 11 November 1941, to provide support for destroyers operating on the Neutrality Patrol in the North Atlantic Ocean.

World War II

1941–1943

After the Japanese

Dutch West Indies

in early September 1942, Altair tended destroyers at Trinidad through mid-July 1943.

patrol vessel HNLMS Jan van Brakel (M-80)

.

1943–1946

Following repairs at the

Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, Altair reported to Commander, Operational Training Command, Atlantic Fleet, on 21 August 1943 and soon resumed active tender operations at Bermuda, this time in support of the destroyer and destroyer escort shakedown group (Task Group 23.1) until shifted to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, where she arrived on 11 March 1945. Providing tender services at Guantánamo Bay until 3 May 1945, Altair then returned to the Norfolk Navy Yard to prepared for service in the Pacific theater. While the ship was on her way, Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally and the European war ended on 8 May 1945. Prepared for "distant service," Altair emerged from the Norfolk Navy Yard on 26 July 1945 and set course for the Pacific. Arriving in the Panama Canal Zone on 4 August 1945, the ship was still there when hostilities with Japan ended on 14 August 1945 (15 August 1945 on the other side of the International Date Line in the Western Pacific and East Asia

.

Altair departed the Panama Cana Zone for Pearl Harbor on 15 August 1945. She reached Pearl Harbor on 6 September 1945 and provided tender services to small ships and craft into the early spring of 1946. She departed Hawaiian waters for the last time on 27 April 1946 and reached

12th Naval District

.

Decommissioning and disposal

Decommissioned at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard (formerly the Mare Island Navy Yard) on 21 June 1946, Altair was transferred to the United States Maritime Commission on 8 July 1946, and her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 21 July 1946. Laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet's Suisun Bay

, California, berthing area, the ship remained there until sold on 9 March 1948 to the Basalt Rock Company, which subsequently took delivery of and scrapped her.

Honors and awards

World War II Victory Medal

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

Notes

^ Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). U.S. Warships of World War II. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 283.

[1] Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). U.S. Warships of World War II. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p. 283.

[1]

v t e Altair-class destroyer tenders
Altair Denebola Rigel
Preceded by: USS Bridgeport Followed by: Dixie class
List of auxiliaries of the United States Navy