Early Career
Yamhill — a steel-hulled, single-screw freighter built in 1919 at Oakland, California, by the Moore Shipbuilding Co. under a United States Shipping Board contract — was acquired by the navy from the Shipping Board on 4 November 1921 for use as a store ship. Renamed Arctic (AF-7) on 2 November 1921, she was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 7 November 1921, Lieutenant Commander Charles H. Bullock in command.
Assigned to the Base Force, Pacific Fleet, Arctic arrived at San Diego, California on 24 July 1922. For almost 20 years, she served chiefly in the Pacific, operating with the fleet's train. During the second of her two voyages to Hawaiian waters in 1925, she accompanied the fleet on its Australasian cruise to New Zealand and Samoa. Assigned to Train Squadron 2 (TrainRon 2), her yearly operations varied little, with the ship issuing provisions to the Battle Fleet wherever it was operating. Her cruises along the western seaboard of the United States took her to San Diego, San Pedro and San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.
During the winter of 1936/1937, Arctic found herself busier than ever. A maritime strike, which paralyzed American flag merchant shipping during this period, meant a revision in the storeship's operating schedule. As Commander, Base Force, reported after the end of the fiscal year, the shipping strike emphasized the limitations of the train, since Arctic had to be withdrawn from servicing the fleet to provision the far-flung naval stations at Pearl Harbor and Samoa. Since the fleet operated in Hawaiian waters with increasing frequency, starting with the Hawaiian Detachment in the fall of 1939 and continuing through the assignment of the Fleet there in the spring of 1940, Arctic's schedule was altered to include five or six round trips a year between San Francisco and Pearl Harbor. The outbreak of hostilities with Japan on 7 December 1941 found Arctic one day out of Hawaiian waters, en route to San Francisco.
Read more about this topic: USS Arctic (AF-7)
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