Twin Falls T-AGM-11

Twin Falls

(T-AGM-11: dp. 8,010 (f.)i 1. 466', b. 62', dr. 20' s.
19 k. (tl.); cpl. 66; cl. Twin Falls; T. VC2-S-AP3;

Twin Falls Victory was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MCV hull 167) on 27 December 1944 at Portland, Oreg., by the Oregon Shipbuilding Corp., launched on 6 February 1946, sponsored by Mrs. J. B. Pfietor; and delivered to Pope & Talbot, Inc., of Portland, Oreg., the first of several companies to operate her under contract with the War Shipping Administration. By April 1968, she was out of service and laid up with the National Defense Reserve Fleet at its berthing area on the James River in Virginia.

On 1 July 1964, she was acquired by the Military Sea Transportation Service to become a range instrumentation ship assigned to missile tracking duty on the Air Force's Eastern Test Range in the Atlantic Ocean. Renamed Twin Fall$, designated AGM-11, and operated by a civil service crew, she served as a mobile tracking platform for recording data on missiles and satellites that were out of range of land based tracking stations.

In October 1969, the Air Force determined that Twin Falls was no longer necessary to its mission. Placed out of service early in 1970, she was slated for disposal. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 1 September 1972, and she was transferred, via the Department of Commerce, to New York City on 2 November to serve as a training facility for that city's Food and Maritime Trade High School.