The ''Auk'' class were a class of

minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

s serving with the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

and the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In total, there were 93 ''Auk''s built.

Design and development

Prior to the United States entering World War II, they had produced two ships of the for testing and evaluation. From these two examples it was decided that the use of Diesel-electric engines to power the ship and the minesweeping equipment, rather than separate geared diesel engines to propel the ship and diesel generators to energize the minesweeping equipment, would work better. The

placed an order for 32 of these

s from the United States, ''BAM-1''-''BAM-32''. Because of the additional equipment, the

displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics *Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

was raised from on the ''Raven''s, to on what would come to be known as the ''Auk'' -class in the USN, and the ''Catherine''-class in the RN. The ''Auk'' class displaced 890 long tons, with a length of , a beam of , and a draft of . They had a maximum speed of . The ''Auk''s armament varied. All were equipped with a single gun on the bow, but many had their aft 3-inch gun removed or replace by two Bofors guns. Originally designed with four Oerlikon cannons, some ships mounted as many as eight. Five manufactures provided the diesel-electric engines used in the class. These included the

Cleveland Diesel Engine Division The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division of General Motors (GM) was a leading research, design and production facility of diesel engines from the 1930s to the 1960s that was based in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland Diesel Engine Division designed seve ...

of General Motors,

Cooper Bessemer Cooper-Bessemer refers to the Cooper-Bessemer Corporation and the Cooper-Bessemer brand of industrial engines and compressors, manufactured in Mount Vernon, Ohio. The Cooper-Bessemer Corporation was formed when C. & G. Cooper (founded in 1833) and ...

Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railroad locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, in the early 20th century. The company was for decades t ...

, the

American Locomotive Company The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

(ALCO), and

Busch-Sulzer The Busch-Sulzer Bros. Diesel Engine Company was founded by Adolphus Busch of the Anheuser-Busch brewing company in 1911 as a joint venture with Sulzer Brothers of Switzerland. The company manufactured diesel engines until 1946. In 1897, Adolphu ...

. Twenty of the original 32 ships ordered by the Royal Navy were delivered, with an additional two coming from the USN program. They were given "J"

pennant number In the Royal Navy and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, ships are identified by pennant number (an internationalisation of ''pendant number'', which it was called before 1948). Historically, naval ships flew a flag that iden ...

prefixes. Of these twenty-two, three were sunk in action, and 19 were returned to the US after the war. Eleven minesweepers of the ''Auk'' class were lost in World War II, six to direct enemy action including ,

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

ed by .

Construction

The ships were constructed in 11 different shipyards, by 10 different companies, in 9 different states. *

American Ship Building Company The American Ship Building Company was the dominant shipbuilder on the Great Lakes before the Second World War. It started as Cleveland Shipbuilding in Cleveland, Ohio in 1888 and opened the yard in Lorain, Ohio in 1898. It changed its name to t ...

, Lorain, Ohio *

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, Ohio *

Associated Shipbuilders Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company was a major shipbuilding and construction company, located in Seattle, Washington, on the southwestern corner of Harbor Island, Seattle, Harbor Island, an artificial island in Elliott Bay. The Bridge and Dr ...

Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected ma ...

, Washington *

Defoe Shipbuilding Company The Defoe Shipbuilding Company was a small ship builder established in 1905 in Bay City, Michigan, United States. It ceased to operate in 1976 after failing to renew its contracts with the United States Navy. The site of the former company is ...

, Bay City, Michigan *

General Engineering & Dry Dock Company General Engineering & Dry Dock Company was a shipbuilding and ship repair company in Alameda, California that was active from the 1920s through the 1940s. The company built ships for the Southern Pacific Railroad and the United States Coast Gu ...

Alameda An alameda is a Avenue (landscape), street or path lined with trees () and may refer to: Places Canada *Alameda, Saskatchewan, town in Saskatchewan **Grant Devine Dam, formerly ''Alameda Dam'', a dam and reservoir in southern Saskatchewan Chile ...

, California *

Gulf Shipbuilding Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation is a former shipbuilding corporation in Chickasaw, Alabama a few miles upstream of the Port of Mobile. Following the company's closure, the land became a part of the Chickasaw Shipyard Village Historic District His ...

, Madisonville, Louisiana * John H. Mathis & Company, Camden, New Jersey *

Norfolk Navy Yard The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard and abbreviated as NNSY, is a U.S. Navy facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, for building, remodeling and repairing the Navy's ships. It is the oldest and largest industrial facility tha ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, Virginia * Pennsylvania Shipyards, Inc.,

Beaumont Beaumont may refer to: Places Canada * Beaumont, Alberta * Beaumont, Quebec England * Beaumont, Cumbria * Beaumont, Essex ** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s * Beaumont Street, Oxford France (communes) * Beaumont, Ardèche * ...

, Texas * Savannah Machine & Foundry,

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the Canopy (forest), canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to rea ...

, Georgia *

Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Company was a shipyard in Puget Sound that operated from 1903 until 1959 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, United States. The shipyard was built as an expansion of Hall Bros. Marine Railway & Shipbuilding C ...

Design and development

Construction

List of ships

Royal Navy ''Catherine''-class minesweepers

US Navy ''Auk''-class minesweepers

See also

References

Bibliography

Further reading