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USS Aldebaran (AF-10)

USS Aldebaran
History
United States
Laid down: 28 November 1938
Launched: 21 June 1939
Acquired: 22 December 1940
Commissioned: 10 January 1941
Decommissioned: 28 June 1968
Struck: 1 June 1973
Fate: sold for scrap, 14 November 1974
General characteristics
Displacement: 13,910 tons
Length: 459 ft 3 in (139.98 m)
Beam: 63 ft (19 m)
Draught: 25 ft 10 in (7.87 m)
Speed: 16.4 knots
Complement: 287
Armament: 1 × 5"/38, 4 × 3"/50

USS Aldebaran (AF-10), the lead ship of her class of stores ship is the only ship of the United States Navy to have this name. She is named after Aldebaran, a star of the first magnitude in the constellation Taurus.

Originally the SS Stag Hound was laid down on 28 November 1938 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co. under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 27); launched on 21 June 1939; sponsored by Mrs. Martha Macy Hill; and delivered to the Grace Lines on 4 December 1939. The cargo ship served that shipping firm for a year before the Navy purchased her on 22 December 1940. Renamed Aldebaran, classified a stores ship, and designated AF-10, she was placed in commission, in ordinary, on 26 December 1940. Comdr. Royal Abbott assumed command on 10 January 1941, and Aldebaran was placed in full commission at San Francisco on 14 January 1941.

The stores ship embarked upon her first Navy mission on 26 January, departing from San Francisco on a round-trip voyage via Pearl Harbor to Pago Pago, Samoa. Following her maiden mission for the Navy, Aldebaran remained at San Francisco until 29 March when she put to sea with a cargo bound for Hawaii. The ship made a seven-day layover at Pearl Harbor between 5 and 12 April and returned to San Francisco on the 18th. Upon her arrival back on the west coast, she entered a civilian drydock at Oakland, California, to begin conversion to a fleet provisioning ship. Major modifications were completed by 21 October, and finishing touches were added over the next three weeks. On 14 November, Aldebaran departed San Francisco on her way to San Diego. Following a three-day stay at that port between 16 and 19 November, she got underway for Hawaii. The ship discharged cargo at Pearl Harbor during the last six days of November and, after an overnight stop at Maui, headed back to the west coast on 1 December. Aldebaran arrived at San Francisco on the 6th. On the following morning, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged the United States into World War II.

The ship embarked upon her first wartime voyage on 17 December. Over the next six months, Aldebaran completed four round-trip runs carrying provisions and passengers between San Francisco and Hawaii. She concluded the fourth of those Pearl Harbor shuttle assignments at San Francisco on 6 June 1942.

Her next assignment took the ship beyond Hawaii to the South Pacific. She stood out of San Francisco on 23 June, stopped at Pearl Harbor early in July, and then spent the remainder of the summer of 1942 making calls at ports on the South Pacific circuit. Aldebaran visited Samoa, Tongatapu, New Caledonia, and Espiritu Santo before returning to San Francisco on 23 September. That first wartime series of port calls in the South Pacific established a pattern of operations for her that endured through the next 20 months. Aldebaran loaded cargo at San Francisco and then embarked upon long, circuitous voyages that took her back to New Caledonia, Samoa, and Espiritu Santo.


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