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 and 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. 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, 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 that the Americans, arriving first, had claimed. The dispute was quickly smoothed over by both governments.