North Atlantic Operations
Between 4 June 1947 and 23 October 1948, Canisteo served four tours of duty supporting the U.S. 6th Fleet by carrying oil from Bahrain to the Mediterranean. The winter and spring of 1948–1949 found Canisteo operating on fueling duty from Norfolk, Virginia, to Caribbean ports; Argentia, Newfoundland; and Grondal, Greenland. A pattern of alternating exercises in the Caribbean with overhauls and tours of duty in the Mediterranean in the following years was highlighted by her fueling in support of many fleet exercises.
She played a part in augmenting the growing strength of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization through Operation Mainbrace (26 August-11 October 1952) and in combined operations with Canadian forces (16–20 September 1956). The first shipboard test of the Ships Inertial Navigation System (SINS) was conducted aboard the USS Canisteo (A099) during a 15-day Mediterranean cruise. Active with the Fleet, Canisteo continued to operate out of Norfolk through 1960, participating in fleet and NATO exercises.
Between 1966 and 1968 Canisteo, along with her sister ships Ashtabula and Caloosahatchee, underwent "jumboization". A 400-foot midsection, built entirely new from the keel up, was inserted and welded between her original bow and stern. This replaced the old 310-foot midsection and increased the vessel's liquid cargo capacity by over one-third. Her new configuration closely resembled that of a more modern type of ship, the replenishment oiler.
Morale on the ship was poor in the late 1970s. Recruiters for the early all-volunteer US Navy were fairly desperate for inductees, and this showed no where more clearly than in the crew of the Canisteo. In 1979 she returned from a tour of duty in the Mediterranean to Norfolk VA (her home port). So many men went AWOL that she could not return to sea on schedule, the first time that had happened to a US Navy ship since the Revolutionary War.
Canisteo recovered from this notoriety in the 1980s by participating in Caribbean operations from January 1982 through January 1983, North Atlantic and NATO operations from January through April 1983, and in law enforcement operations in support of the War on Drugs in the Caribbean, August 1985 through January 1986. At the end of the law enforcement operations, Canisteo participated in wreckage recovery operations off the coast of Florida for the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
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