USS Avocet (AVP-4)
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 | |
|---|---|
| United States | |
| Builder | Baltimore Drydock and Shipbuilding Co. |
| Cost | $766,914 (hull and machinery) |
| 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 & 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 & 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 |
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.
Avocet was commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard, on 17 September 1918, as a minesweeper. 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. 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 other's 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.