USS Nitro (AE-23)
_underway_in_1983.JPEG)
USS Nitro in 1983
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Nitro (AE-23) |
| Builder: | Bethlehem Steel Corporation |
| Laid down: | 20 May 1957 |
| Launched: | 25 June 1958 |
| Commissioned: | 1 May 1959 |
| Decommissioned: | 28 April 1995 |
| Struck: | 14 August 1995 |
| Status: | National Defense Reserve Fleet |
| Notes: | Nitro, Pyro, Haleakala are all Nitro class and sister ships. Preceded by the Suribachi class and followed by the Kilauea class |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Suribachi-class ammunition ship |
| Displacement: | 8,300 tons |
| Length: | 512 ft (156 m) |
| Beam: | 72 ft (22 m) |
| Draft: | 29 ft (8.8 m) |
| Speed: | 20 knots |
| Complement: | 331 |
| Armament: | 4 x 3" guns |
USS Nitro (AE–23), an ammunition ship in the U.S. Navy, was laid down by Bethlehem Steel Corporation’s Sparrows Point Shipyard at Baltimore, Maryland, on 20 May 1957 and launched on 25 June 1958. It was sponsored by Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Bunting Pate, the wife of General Randolph M. Pate, and commissioned on 1 May 1959 with Captain Warren C. Hall in command.
After shakedown in the Caribbean, Nitro was welcomed at her homeport of Davisville, Rhode Island. After lengthy 2nd Fleet exercises she joined the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean in February 1960, returning in September. She was back in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1961, returning to Norfolk on 3 March 1962. During April and May she supported 2nd Fleet exercises in the Caribbean. On 6 September she steamed for an operational and good will visit to Northern Europe, returning to Earle, N.J., 15 October. From 11 to 24 November, Nitro sailed to the Caribbean in support of the Task Force engaged in the quarantine of Cuba. She returned to Davisville on 24 November.
On 18 May 1966, her status was changed to in commission in reserve for conversion at Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Baltimore, where she remained until recommissioned “special” 31 August 1967. She got underway 16 October to operate off the east coast and at year’s end was back at Davisville. Continuing the series of Med deployments, Nitro was overhauled in Boston in the summer of 1971. Following that she made another round of the Caribbean and then visited the weapons stations at Davisville, Earle and Yorktown.
Leaving Davisville on 24 April 1972, Nitro stopped at NWS Earle to top off weapons stores. As the ship left port to begin the transit to Vietnam, seven sailors jumped off the ship in protest of the war. A trailing Coast Guard cutter collected the sailors and returned them to Nitro. Five days later Nitro transited the Panama Canal for the first time.
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