USNS ''Neptune'' (ARC-2), was the lead ship in her class of cable repair ships in U.S. Naval service. The ship was built by

Pusey & Jones The Pusey and Jones Corporation was a major shipbuilder and industrial-equipment manufacturer. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, it operated from 1848 to 1959. Shipbuilding was its primary focus from 1853 until the end of World War II, when the comp ...

Corp. of

Wilmington, Delaware Wilmington ( Lenape: ''Paxahakink /'' ''Pakehakink)'' is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina ...

, Hull Number 1108, as the USACS ''William H. G. Bullard'' named for Rear Adm.

William H. G. Bullard William Hannum Grubb Bullard (6 December 1866 – 24 November 1927) was an admiral of the United States Navy, whose service included duty during the Spanish–American War and World War I. After World War I, he established the Navy's patrol on Chi ...

. She was the first of two

Maritime Commission The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 195 ...

type S3-S2-BP1 ships built for the US Army Signal Corps near the end of

World War II 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 ...

. The other ship was the ''Albert J. Myer'', which later joined her sister ship in naval service as the USNS ''Albert J. Myer'' (T-ARC-6). The ship was assigned to and largely worked on installation of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) under its unclassified name for installation, Project Caesar.

Function

''Neptune''s assignments were typically to transport, deploy, retrieve and repair submarine cables, tow cable plowLarge devices used to bury cable in coastal areas to protect from damage from trawls and other hazards. and acoustic projectors, and conduct acoustic, hydrographic, and bathymetric surveys. Civilian cable engineers and specialist were involved during cable or surveying operations in addition to a Navy crew of nine officers and 142 enlisted personnel.SOSUS and both operations and actual linkage of Project Caesar to SOSUS was at the time classified and tightly controlled. The system was covered as "oceanographic research" and the cable operations were not associated with undersea surveillance systems. Thus any public information, such as the referenced ''All Hands'' article, did not describe the true nature of the operations. The ''All Hands'' article "Underseas Cable Layer" emphasizes the cover story with the purpose being to connect remote ocean observation centers with shore stations. In addition to cable operations and surveys for Project Caesar the ship supported experimental efforts and other projects.

Career

After completion for the US Army Signal Corps in February 1946, ''Neptune'' was handed to the

and placed in the

James River The James River is a river in the U.S. state of Virginia that begins in the Appalachian Mountains and flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 to Chesapea ...

reserve fleet A reserve fleet is a collection of naval vessels of all types that are fully equipped for service but are not currently needed; they are partially or fully decommissioned. A reserve fleet is informally said to be "in mothballs" or "mothballed"; a ...

on 2 March 1946. In 1952 ''Neptune'' was assigned to Project Caesar, the unclassified name for the installation phase of SOSUS. The system's mission was declassified in 1991. On 17 February 1953 the ship was named ''Neptune'' and withdrawn from the reserve fleet. The ship then went to the

Bethlehem Steel Co The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

. in

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for a number of modifications: e.g., electric cable machinery (in place of steam), precision navigation instrumentation, and a helicopter platform over the fantail. Cable drums in diameter and bow sheaves spanning were among the more visible modifications. On 1 June 1953 the ship was commissioned USS ''Neptune'' (ARC-2). The ship's operations were classified so few specific ones are public. One was the 1962 connection of the array once terminating at Naval Facility Cape May to Naval Facility Lewes necessitated by destruction of the Cape May shore station in the "Ash Wednesday" Storm.To preserve secrecy the shore terminals operated under the cover of "oceanographic research" and were designated by the generic term "Naval Facility" until most had been decommissioned in system consolidation and before declassification. See SOSUS. From December 1965 through March 1966 ''Neptune'' was overhauled in Boston. In 1973, ''Neptune'' transferred to the

Military Sealift Command Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all US m ...

(MSC), was re-designated T-ARC-2, and continued operations with an MSC

civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

crew. Only two of the four cable ships available for Project Caesar had been designed and built as cable ships, the others being conversions and lacking some critical features needed for cable operations. The larger and were not suitable for modernization while ''Albert J. Myer'' and ''Neptune'' had cable ship features, including deeper draft than the larger ships, that made them suitable candidates for modernization. In hearings for the 1980 appropriations the Navy requested an increase of $9.6 million over an original estimate of $14.5 million in ''Neptune'' conversion budget for a total of $24.1 million. The revised estimate was based on actual ''Myer'' conversion costs. In particular the Navy was questioned about conversion of merchant type hulls to cable ships and answered that conversion would be more expensive. Further, charter of commercial cable ships was done when needed, but expensive and those ships were not always available when required. The AT&T was used on occasion to lay trunk cable at a daily cost of $30,000 vice ''Neptune's'' $19,200. Scheduled Project Caesar work required a minimum of three Navy cable ships. ''Neptune'' was extensively modernized in 1982 by

General Dynamics General Dynamics Corporation (GD) is an American publicly traded, aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2020, it was the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world by arms sales, and 5th largest in the Uni ...

Corporation in

Quincy, Massachusetts Quincy ( ) is a coastal U.S. city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest city in the county and a part of Greater Boston, Metropolitan Boston as one of Boston's immediate southern suburbs. Its population in 2020 was 1 ...

.Se
photos
before and after modernization. That work included new turbo-electric engines. ''Neptune'' and sister ship ''Albert J. Myer'', with Skinner Uniflow Reciprocating Steam Engines, were the last ships in the Navy to operate using reciprocating steam engines. ''Neptune'' performed cable repair duties all over the world until 1991, when she'd been in service for some 38 years. During her career, she received a

Navy E ribbon The Navy "E" Ribbon or Battle Efficiency Ribbon (informally the Battle "E" ribbon) was authorized on March 31, 1976, by Secretary of the Navy J. William Middendorf as a unit award for battle efficiency competition. The service ribbon replaced th ...

in 1988. Inactivated in 1991, the same year in which the SOSUS mission was declassified, she was placed in the James River

near Ft. Eustis, VA on 24 September 1991. The ex-''Neptune'' was removed from the fleet 6 December 1994 to stripped. The ship was dismantled and recycled by International Shipbreaking Ltd. of

Brownsville, TX Brownsville () is a city in Cameron County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The city covers , and has a population of 186,738 as of the 2020 census. It ...

in late 2005.

Footnotes

References

* * ''The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet'', Norman Polmar, Naval Institute Press, 13th edition, 1984. * ''OPNAV NOTICE 1650'', Master List of Unit Awards and Campaign Medals, 9 March 2001. * ''MARAD press release 14-05'', 28 July 2005, Maritime Administration announcement of the disposal of ex-''Meyer'' & ex-''Neptune''.

External links

Cable ship, ''William H. G. Bullard'' before launching

Erecting bow sheave casting.

Trial trip of the cable ship, ''William H. G. Bullard''
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neptune (ARC-2) Type S3-S2-BP ships of the United States Army Ships built by Pusey and Jones 1945 ships World War II auxiliary ships of the United States Cold War auxiliary ships of the United States Neptune-class cable ships