YDT 5

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.

Accentor Class Coastal Minesweeper Keel Laid 4 August 1941 - Launched 14 November 1941 USS FEARLESS AMc-80 Placed in Service 4 February 1942 YDT-5 (Tender) Reclassified Diving Tender (YDT) 15 February 1943 Sunk as a target 1 April 1973 In 80 feet of water lying on her keel 800 yards North of Great Harbour Peter Island in the British Virgin Islands

 

Conflicting History Data

NavSource lists a different fate than what is given in Wikipedia but matches what is written in the book World War II U.S. Navy Vessels in Private Hands by Greg H. Williams:
     Acquired in 1973 by Fearless Enterprises of Palatka, FL
     Moved in 1982 to Gloucester, MA
     Out of documentation in 1985
     Fate unknown.

DreamWrecks page "The Fearless, BVIs" describes the shipwreck as: "A wooden hulled mine-sweeper, the Fearless is the sister-ship of Jacques Yves Cousteau’s Calypso."
However, the Cousteau Society page on Calypso describes the ship as:
"a former Royal Navy mine-sweeper that had been converted to a ferry and named Calypso. The ship was christened in 1942 but her first prosaic name, J-826..."
This does not sound like the sister ship of USS Fearless (AMc 80) to me.

 

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. USS Fearless AMc-80 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

 

USPO Machine Postmark Charleston, SC

1942-03-28

As AMc-80. The ship had no postal facilities.

 

Other Information

NAMESAKE - Free from dread.

Three ships of the US Navy have borne the name FEARLESS - USS Fearless SP-724, USS Fearless AMc-80 and USS Fearless MSO-442.

 

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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.

 

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