USS ''Palm Beach ''(AGER-3) was a former Army Auxiliary Aircraft Repair Ship converted to an electronic and signals intelligence ship of the
United States Navy.
Service history
She was laid down as ''FS-217'' one of the 18 specialized Design 427 variants of the Army Freight and Supply type, officially
Vessel, Supply, Aircraft Repair, Diesel, Steel, 180', at
Higgins Industries in
New Orleans. ''FS-217'' was delivered to the
US Army Transportation Corps
The Transportation Corps is a combat service support branch of the U.S. Army. It is responsible for the movement of personnel and material by truck, rail, air, and sea. It is one of three U.S. Army logistics branches, the others being the Qu ...
operation under technical control of the
United States Army Air Forces in December 1944. At some point, after delivery, the
Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
named the repair vessels with ''FS-217'' being named ''Colonel Armond Peterson''.
[Only the USAAF named the FS types, though some of the others gained names after the war.] The ship was first based in
San Francisco, but later engaged in coastal surveys off the
Lesser Antilles and coast of
Central America. The ship was based at
Balboa,
Canal Zone before being placed in reserve status on 17 February 1956.
''Colonel Armond Peterson'' was acquired and converted by the
United States Navy and redesignated as Light Cargo Ship ''Palm Beach'' (AKL-45) on 18 June 1966. She was converted to a
Banner class environmental research ship at
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and reclassified as AGER-3. The ''Palm Beach'' was commissioned on 13 October 1967 and served two years as an
ELINT/
SIGINT ship, deploying in the
Mediterranean and in the
North Sea. She was decommissioned and later struck on 1 December 1969. She was sold to a private owner, then resold to a Panamanian company and renamed MV ''Oro Verde''. The ship was eventually involved in drug smuggling and ran aground in the
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...
. She was sunk by the Cayman Islands government as a SCUBA
dive wreck.
Footnotes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Palm Beach
1944 ships
Cold War auxiliary ships of the United States
Ships of the United States Army
Design 427 coastal freighters
Banner-class environmental research ships