Trapper ACM-9

Trapper

(ACM-9: dp. 1,320, 1. 188'2", b. 37'0" dr. 12'6"; a.12.6 k (tl.); cpl. 69; a. 1 40mm.; cl. chimo)

Trapper (ACM-9) was built for the United States Army aB Maj. Gen. Arthur Murray at Point Pleasant W. Va., by the Marietta Manufacturing Co.; acquired by the Navy on 2 January 1945; converted into an auxiliary minelayer by the Navy Yard, Charleston, S.C.; and commissioned on 15 March 1945, Lt. Richard E. Lewis, USNR, in command.

After shakedown training in the Chesapeake Bay area during April, Trapper got underway on 11 June and proceeded-via Manzanillo, the Panama Canal, and San Diego-to the Pacific war zone. In mid-August, while the minelayer was en route to Hawaii, Japan capitulated. The ship arrived at Pearl Harbor on 21 August and was routed westward, via Eniwetok, Saipan, and Okinawa, to Japan.

Trapper arrived at Kobe on 25 November 1946 and operated out of that port repairing minesweeping gear until 1 February 1946 when she shifted her base of operations to Wakayama for a month. On 11 March, the minelayer got underway for the United States. En route, she called at Saipan, Eniwetok, Kwajalein, Johnston, and Hawaii before arriving at San Francisco on 2 May. Trapper was decommissioned and transferred to the United States Coast Guard on 20 June 1946 and attack from the Navy list on 19 July 1946.

The former auxiliary minelayer served with the Coast Guard until early 1959 aB Yamacraw (WARC-333). She was reacquired by the United States Navy on 17 April 1959 and commissioned at New York on 30 April as ARC-5, a cable repair ship.

Yamacraw was assigned to the 3d Naval District for the next six years. She operated from Portsmouth, N.H., to Bermuda and spent much of her at-sea time conducting research projects for the Office of Naval Research and for the Bell Telephone Laboratories.

On 2 July 1965, Yamacraw was decommissioned transferred to the permanent custody of the Maritime Administration, and struck from the Navy list.