USNS Range Recoverer
{{short description|American tracking ship}}
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=USNS Range Recoverer (T-AGM-2) 01.jpg |Ship caption= USNS Range Recoverer (T-AGM-2) }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header = |Ship country = United States |Ship flag = {{USN flag|1945}} |Ship name = * FS-278 (1944-1960)
|Ship namesake = A ship stationed in the anticipated landing area of a space vehicle |Ship owner = |Ship operator = |Ship registry = |Ship route = |Ship ordered = |Ship awarded = |Ship builder = Wheeler Shipbuilding Corporation, Whitestone, New York |Ship original cost = |Ship yard number = |Ship way number = |Ship laid down = |Ship launched = |Ship sponsor = |Ship christened = |Ship completed = for the U.S.Army in 1944 as FS-278 |Ship acquired = by the Navy April 1960 |Ship commissioned = |Ship recommissioned = |Ship decommissioned = |Ship maiden voyage = |Ship in service = 22 June 1960 as USNS Range Recoverer (T-AG-161) |Ship out of service = 1972 |Ship renamed = |Ship reclassified = 27 November 1960 as Missile Range Instrumentation Ship (T-AGM-2); as Range Tender YFRT-524 (date unknown) |Ship refit = Pacific Ship Repair, San Francisco, California (as missile tracker) |Ship struck = |Ship reinstated = |Ship homeport = |Ship identification = *{{IMO Number|7641671}}
|Ship motto = |Ship nickname = |Ship honours = |Ship honors = |Ship captured = |Ship fate = *Sold for scrapping, 1 November 1974
|Ship status = |Ship notes = |Ship badge = }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header = |Header caption = |Ship class = |Ship type = missile range instrumentation ship |Ship tonnage = |Ship displacement = *550 tons light
|Ship length = {{cvt|176|ft|6|in}} |Ship beam = {{cvt|32|ft}} |Ship height = |Ship draught = |Ship draft = {{cvt|11|ft|5|in}} |Ship depth = |Ship hold depth = |Ship decks = |Ship deck clearance = |Ship ramps = |Ship ice class = |Ship power = |Ship propulsion = Diesel, two 500hp GE Diesel engines, twin screws |Ship sail plan = |Ship speed = 10 knots |Ship range = |Ship endurance = |Ship test depth = |Ship boats = |Ship capacity = |Ship troops = |Ship complement = 24 personnel |Ship crew = |Ship time to activate = |Ship sensors = |Ship EW = |Ship armament = none |Ship armour = |Ship armor = |Ship aircraft = |Ship aircraft facilities = |Ship notes = }} |
USNS Range Recoverer (T-AG-161/T-AGM-2/YFRT-524) was a missile range instrumentation ship responsible for providing radar and/or telemetry track data on missiles launched from American launch sites.
She was built during World War II as U.S. Army U.S. Army FS-278, and was acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1960 as miscellaneous auxiliary and was converted into a missile tracking ship. She continued her missile tracking until being placed out of service in 1972, at which time she was reclassified range tender YFRT-524, and eventually sold for scrap in 1974. However, she avoided the scrapyards and served as a fishing vessel until at least 2016.
U.S. Army
FS-278 was built for the Army in 1944, by the Wheeler Shipbuilding Corp., Whitestone, New York. FS-278 was a Coast Guard-crewed Army vessel commissioned at New York on 25 November 1944 departing New York on 17 December 1944, for the Southwest Pacific where she operated at Peleliu, Palawan, etc. during the war. Command transferred to LT A. W. Engle, USCGR on 25 June 1945. From 28 August until 20 September FS-278 transported General Douglas MacArthur's defense planning staff for the Philippine Islands. She was decommissioned 3 October 1945.{{cite web | author=USCG Historian | title=World War II Coast Guard-Manned U.S. Army Freight and Supply Ship Histories | url=http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/FS_Vessels.asp | access-date=2011-09-27}}
U.S. Navy
The ship was acquired by the Navy in April 1960; converted by Pacific Ship Repair, San Francisco, California; and placed in service with the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) as T-AG-161 on 22 June 1960.
Missile tracking activities
Named Range Recoverer on 12 July, she reported to the Navy's Pacific Missile Range in August 1960. At the time Navy had command and control authority over nearly all Vandenberg Air Force Base launches and the range.{{cite web |url=https://www.vandenberg.spaceforce.mil/?fsID=4606 |title=U.S. Air Force Fact Sheet |last=U.S.A.F. History Office (Vandenburg) |publisher=U.S.A.F. History Office (Vandenburg) |access-date=16 June 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924094647/http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet_print.asp?fsID=4606 |archive-date=24 September 2015 }}From May 1958 until transfer of range facilities ordered 16 November 1963 and effective 1 July 1964 the Pacific Missile Range was under Navy. Range Recoverer transferred to the Atlantic before the range was transferred to Air Force and was never an Air Force Western Test Range ship. On 27 November she was reclassified a missile range instrumentation ship and designated T-AGM-2. She is equipped with telemetry, data processing and radio instruments as well as recovery facilities to retrieve nose cones.
Crewed by the Civil Service of the Military Sea Transportation Service, Range Recoverer served first as a telemetry and recovery ship on the Pacific Missile Range where she launched, tested, and evaluated the Regulus missile. In July 1962 Range Recoverer shifted to Little Creek, Virginia, to support the NASA facility at Wallops Island, Virginia. NASA technical party operators used on board equipment, including helix antennas, data recording systems and a communications suite with direction finders to locate and recover payloads.{{cite web | author=NASA | title=SP-4311 Way Station to Space-Chapter 4: Space Science Research | url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4311/ch4.htm | access-date=2011-09-27}} There she replaced two T-1 tankers, Dumont and Whitlock, damaged during a storm.
Since that time, into 1970, Range Recoverer operated out of Little Creek primarily between Wallops Island and the splash down area near Bermuda.
Other services provided
During the mid-sixties the ship traveled to Greece for coordinated research on a solar eclipse and was visited by the Greek royal family. NASA, assisting other government agencies, has also loaned Range Recoverer to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to conduct oceanographic surveys off the coast of Virginia.
Final disposition
Range Recoverer was placed out-of-service in 1972 and reclassified as range tender YFRT-524. She was struck from the Navy List (unknown date) and sold for scrap 1 November 1974.
Despite being sold for scrap, Range Recoverer remained extant until at least 2016 as the Virginia-based fishing vessel Reedville.{{cite web|url=https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:920928/imo:7641671/_:c8077d9bcdd6870a11575cf33938c9a0|title=REEDVILLE|website=MarineTraffic|access-date=31 August 2018}}
Footnotes
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See also
References
{{reflist}}
- {{DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/r2/range_recoverer.htm}}
- {{navsource|09/53/5302}}
{{Design 381 coastal freighters}}
{{Missile range instrumentation ship (T-AGM)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Range Recoverer}}
Category:Ships of the United States Army
Category:Design 381 coastal freighters
Category:Ships built in Queens, New York
Category:Missile range instrumentation ships of the United States Navy
Category:Cold War auxiliary ships of the United States