USS Antares (AG-10) - Early Career

Early Career

Antares was originally built under Shipping Board contract as the steel-hulled freighter Nedmac, and constructed by the American International Ship Building Corp.; acquired by the Navy on 14 November 1921 under the terms of Executive Order No. 3570 (29 October 1921) which authorized her transfer from the Shipping Board, she was renamed Antares and classified as a "miscellaneous auxiliary", AG-10. She was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 23 February 1922, Lieutenant Commander Howard E. Pinkham, USNRF, in command.

After fitting out, Antares joined the Fleet Train, replacing the old auxiliary Nanshan. In March 1923, the ship became flagship for the Train, Scouting Fleet, a squadron of auxiliaries that supported those elements of the Fleet operating along the U.S. East Coast. Though her unit was later administratively incorporated into the Fleet Base Force as Squadron 1, Antares continued to wear the flag of the officer who commanded the auxiliaries on the Atlantic coast. Throughout that period, the ship also served as the fleet target repair and photographic ship, a vital auxiliary to the fleet's gunnery training in the 1920s.

Employed at East Coast ports and operating areas, ranging from the Southern Drill Grounds to the Caribbean, Antares, like other naval vessels, occasionally gathered oceanographic data in the course of her voyages; she re-plotted landmarks for range finder and compass calibration charts, furnishing the Hydrographic Office with data needed to complete the calibration chart of Culebra, Puerto Rico, during the fiscal year 1924. During this time period, Antares participated in fleet concentrations and maneuvers in Cuban waters and in the Panama Canal Zone. Antares brought the planes of Utility Squadron 2 (VJ-2) back to Naval Air Station (NAS), Hampton Roads, following the winter maneuvers in 1925, and for the winter maneuvers of 1926, transported three assembled and one crated plane from VJ-2 to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where they towed sleeve targets for the Scouting Fleet's cruisers. Antares then transported VJ-2 to Coco Solo, and from there back to Guantanamo Bay. She again served as an aviation transport that summer, returning to Cuban waters in company with the repair ship Vestal.

From 1 January 1934, Antares served as a supply ship for the Special Service Squadron and, from January to March 1935, as a Mobile Base for the Fleet Marine Force. She then operated in the Caribbean until 1 June 1936 under orders of the Chief of Naval Operations. Placed in reduced commission as of 4 June, Antares served as receiving ship at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

Placed in full commission on 17 May 1937 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Antares was assigned temporary duty with the Naval Transportation Service (a forerunner of the later Military Sea Transportation Service and the Military Sealift Command), and operated on both east and west coasts. She also operated with the Training Detachment, United States Fleet, and while assigned to this unit participated in Fleet Landing Exercise No. 4 in February 1938. In his report of the evolution, Rear Admiral Alfred Wilkinson Johnson—Commander, Training Detachment—considered that Antares—which had acted as a "utility auxiliary"—had proved "indispensable". He commended her performance of duty, which had been performed in spite of a "crammed schedule, allowing little or no time for upkeep." Antares was the only ship available which could handle the experimental tank lighter, artillery lighter, and other heavy marine equipment. "Her design," Johnson wrote, "except for speed, is ideal for the type of duty performed, and without her services serious curtailment of the operations would have been necessary."

The planned conversion of the ship to a general stores issue ship caused consternation at Headquarters, Marine Corps, General Thomas Holcomb pleading with the Chief of Naval Operations—Admiral William D. Leahy—to leave Antares in her current configuration, since she had proved so invaluable in the development of equipment and tactics in landing on a hostile shore. Ultimately, however, the conversion was carried out despite the marines' earnest entreaties.

Resuming her work with the Base Force, United States Fleet, from mid-June 1938, Antares operated principally out of San Pedro, California, but later expanded her area of operations to the Hawaiian Islands and changed her base to Pearl Harbor. On 30 November 1940, the ship was reclassified to a general stores issue ship, AKS-3. During 1941, Antares operated between Pearl Harbor and the U.S. West Coast (San Pedro, Mare Island Navy Yard, and San Francisco, California), and Pacific islands such as Palmyra and Canton.