USS Tanager (AM-5)
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| History | |
|---|---|
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| Name: | USS Tanager |
| Builder: | Staten Island Shipbuilding Company |
| Laid down: | 28 September 1917 |
| Launched: | 2 March 1918 |
| Commissioned: | 28 June 1918, as Minesweeper No.5 |
| Reclassified: | AM-5, 17 July 1920 |
| Struck: | 8 May 1942 |
| Honours and awards: |
1 battle star (World War II) |
| Fate: | Sunk by Bataan shore fire, 4 May 1942 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Lapwing-class minesweeper |
| Displacement: | 840 long tons (853 t) |
| Length: | 187 ft 10 in (57.25 m) |
| Beam: | 35 ft 6 in (10.82 m) |
| Draft: | 10 ft 4 in (3.15 m) |
| Speed: | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Complement: | 85 |
| Armament: | 2 × 3 in (76 mm) guns |
USS Tanager (AM-5) was an Lapwing-class minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.
Tanager was named by the U.S. Navy after the tanager, one of numerous American passerine birds.
Tanager (Minesweeper No. 5) was laid down on 28 September 1917 at New York City, by the Staten Island Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 2 March 1918; sponsored by Mrs. G. H. Bates; and commissioned on 28 June 1918, Lt. (jg.) Michael Higgins in command.
After operating locally out of Boston, Massachusetts through the late summer of 1918, Tanager, in company with Western King, departed New London, Connecticut, on 26 September 1918, bound for the Azores. The minesweeper subsequently operated out of Punta Delgada on local escort duties with the Azores detachment through the fall, before pushing on toward Portugal and reaching Lisbon on the day after Christmas 1918. Later in her tour in European waters, she delivered a case of to Georgia (Battleship No. 15) which apparently was trying to combat an outbreak of influenza.
In the spring, Tanager was assigned to the mine-sweeping detachment established to clear the North Sea Mine Barrage between the shores of Scotland and Norway, and arrived at Kirkwall, Scotland, on 7 May 1919. The barrage – which had been laid during World War I to prevent a sortie by the German High Seas Fleet and forays by German U-boats – now prevented the resumption of the commercial shipping which had criss-crossed the North Sea before the war.
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