USS Timbalier (AVP-54) - U.S. Navy Career

U.S. Navy Career

Timbalier sailed from Seattle, Washington on 20 June 1946, arriving at San Francisco, California two days later on 22 June 1946. She transferred to Alameda, California, where she loaded stores and airplane spare parts before sailing for San Diego, California, on 26 June 1946. She underwent a period of sea trials off the United States West Coast finishing 27 July 1946. She then sailed to Panama, transiting the Panama Canal on 3 August 1946. Timbalier then sailed to the shipyards at New York City.

She was at the New York Naval Shipyard at Brooklyn, New York until 8 November 1946, when she sailed to Norfolk, Virginia, arriving there on 9 November 1946. She spent the rest of November in the vicinity of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Timbalier departed Hampton Roads on 3 December 1946, bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico. She arrived there on 7 December 1946, beginning service with Fleet Air Wing 11 (FAW-11). She was based at Trinidad, and carried out operations into the Caribbean and off the United States East Coast. She served with FAW-11 as a tender for their Martin PBM Mariner flying boats for the rest of her naval career. With the increase in the Soviet submarine threat by 1951, the PBM Mariner squadrons were deployed to carry out reconnaissance off the U.S. East Coast, and were to concentrate on convoy defense and antisubmarine warfare in the event of conflict with the Soviet Union, supported by Timbalier, her sister USS Duxbury Bay (AVP-38) and seaplane tender USS Currituck (AV-7).

In 1952 Timbalier supported flying boat operations during Operation Mainbrace, a large-scale exercise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's navies, off the Scandinavian and Icelandic coasts;Timbalier tended flying boats operating out of Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands.