SURFBIRD ADG 383

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

Auk Class Minesweeper Keel Laid February 15 1944 - Launched August 31 1944 USS SURFBIRD AM-383 Commissioned November 25 1944 - Decommissioned June 5 1946 Laid up in Pacific Reserve Fleet Recommissioned March 12 1952 Appeared briefly in the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny as the fictitious minesweeper USS Jones USS SURFBIRD MSF-383 Reclassified Fleet Minesweeper (Steel Hull) (MSF) February 7 1955 USS SURFBIRD ADG-383 Reclassified Degaussing Ship (ADG) June 15 1957 Decommissioned December 18 1970 Laid up in Pacific Reserve Fleet Struck from Navy Register February 21 1975 Sold December 5 1975 to the Pacific Northwest Salvage Co. Inc. Seattle, WA HELENKA B (Commercial Service) Sold December 1975 to Brice Industries of Fairbanks, Alaska and renamed Sold to Wel-Aska of Valdez, Alaska Fate unknown

 

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

1. Covers Page 1     (DATE RANGE)

 

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.
 
>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

 

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Postmark Date	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

---

1st Commissioning November 25 1944 to June 5 1946

 

NO SURFBIRD POSTMARKS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME

DATE FROM to DATE TO

Note:

---

2nd Commissioning March 12 1952 to December 18 1970

 

Locy Type 7 17000 Branch Sasebo, Japan

1963-10-10

The ship had no postal facilities.

 

Other Information

SURFBIRD received three battle stars for service in World War II, two for Korean service, and eight for service in Vietnam

NAMESAKE - A shore bird of the Pacific coasts of America, allied to the turnstones

 

---

 

If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.

 

---

Copyright 2024 Naval Cover Museum