AMERICAN MARINER T-AGM 12

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.

American Mariner Class Missile Range Instrumentation Ship Keel Laid 1942, as SS GEORGE CALVERT at Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, Baltimore, MD Launched 30 December 1941 as AMERICAN MARINER On 12 Feb 1942, when 65.4% complete, towed to the nearby Bethlehem Key Highway plant for completion as a training ship Conversion completed 10 Mar 1943 and delivered to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) Division of Training for operation by the Coast Guard AMERICAN MARINER (Training Ship) Served the U.S. Coast Guard as a cadet training ship in the New York area until spring of 1946 Assigned to Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) as a school ship in 1946 Operated at the United States Maritime Service (USMS) training facility in St. Petersburg, Florida until March 1950 Laid up in a ready reserve status at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. On 9 December 1953 towed to the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) Hudson River Reserve Fleet at Jones Point, N. Y. for full layup USAS AMERICAN MARINER (U.S. Army) Withdrawn from the Reserve Fleet and delivered to the U.S. Army on 18 June 1958 Converted to a Missile Range Instrumentation Ship USAFS AMERICAN MARINER (U.S. Air Force) Assigned to the AMR (Atlantic Missile Range) under the Air Force control 1 July 1963 USNS AMERICAN MARINER T-AGM-12 Transferred to the US Navy Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) and Placed in Service 7 January 1964 Placed out of Service 7 January 1966 and struck from the Naval Register Intentionally grounded October 1966 on a sand bar in Chesapeake Bay for use as an aerial bombing target.

 

Conflicting History Data

Most of the history shown above comes from Shipscribe but there are some differences compared to
the histories provided by NavSource and Wikipedia - particularly with regard to the early years.

1. Commissioning/Decommissioning in the U.S. Coast Guard
NavSource says the ship was commissioned in the U.S. Coast Guard early on:
- Commissioned by the US Coast Guard, SS American Mariner (FIX), 30 December 1941
- Decommissioned, 31 August 1942
The dates are odd in that the commission date is the same as the launch date and before the ship was "Completed, 12 February 1942".
Shipscribe says the ship was only 65.4% complete on 12 February 1942 and wasn't fully completed and delivered until 10 March 1943.
The Wikipedia page's info box matches NavSource (which may be because the info came from NavSource which is cited as a source?)
but the article text does not mention commissioning/decommissioning in the Coast Guard.

[Note: I believe the designation "(FIX)" given in NavSource should be "(WIX)" as given in the official (and extremely minimalist) U.S. Coast Guard page for the ship]


2. 1946 Operating Area
NavSource says the ship was "Assigned to Massachusetts Maritime Academy (AMA) as a school ship in 1946".
Once again, the Wikipedia page's info box matches NavSource but there is no mention of this in the article text.
Shipscribe says only that the ship operated in the "New York port area" and makes no mention of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy
(I believe the correct acronym is MMA).

The Wikipedia page for the Massachusetts Maritime Academy lists AMERICAN MARINER as being a training ship for the year 1946 only but no sources are cited.

Shipscribe, NavSource, and Wikipedia generally agree with the remainder of the ship's history - albeit with some minor differences in specific dates.

 

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. USNS American Mariner T-AGM-12 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

 

USPS Machine Postmark West Palm Beach, FL

1985-01-11

Note:

 

Other Information

AMERICAN MARINER earned the American Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal and the National Defense Service Medal during career.

 

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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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