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USS ''Beaver'' (AS-5) — a steel-hulled, single-screw, freight and passenger steamer built in 1910 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. for the Union Pacific Railroad Company — was purchased from the San Francisco & Portland Steamship Co. on 1 July 1918; given the classification Id. No. 2302; converted to a submarine tender at the Mare Island Navy Yard; and commissioned there on 1 October 1918, Lieutenant Commander James A. Logan in command. To prepare her to serve as mobile repair and maintenance facility for submarine squadrons, the yard workers installed a machine shop, electrical plant, battery shop, and refrigerator units inside the ship. Since her duties included providing boat services to submarines, the tender carried four motor launches, three motor boats, and five smaller craft. ==Transfer to Pacific and 1920's== Assigned to the Pacific Station, her first service was to escort four of the newly constructed ''O''-class submarines (O-boats) from San Pedro, California, to Coco Solo in the Canal Zone. There she was assigned as tender to Submarine Division 14 (SubDiv 14). At this time, because diesel submarines had limited range and were prone to engine failures, their operations were generally confined to the coastal waters off American submarine bases. Before the war, there was only one submarine tender in commission and only three submarine bases in operation: one at New London, Connecticut; another at San Pedro, California, and the third at Coco Solo in Panama. In order to expand operations and provide bases for the growing numbers of submarines being built during World War I, the Navy commissioned ''Beaver'' and four other tenders and began looking for new base locations. In the Pacific, with Japan viewed as the major threat to American security, naval and military planners began building up the defenses of Hawaii and other possessions. In Hawaii, four F-boats had been stationed at Honolulu and at Kuahua Island in Pearl Harbor from 21 July 1914. Their crews had built a small pier at the latter location before returning to the west coast on 14 November 1915. In order to improve this facility and create a permanent submarine base at Pearl Harbor, ''Beaver'' received orders to Hawaii in early 1919. She escorted six of the new R-boats from San Pedro to Oahu that spring, arriving at Kuahua Island in early July. The tender's crew then helped the submariners build an administrative building, a mess hall, and shops to service and overhaul the boats. The following year, ''Beaver'' was ordered east to tend Atlantic Fleet submarines. Departing the Hawaiian Islands on 18 February 1920, she transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Cristóbal, Colón on 25 March. From there, she proceeded to Kingston, Jamaica, and Havana, Cuba, before arriving at Hampton Roads, Virginia on 10 April. After repairs at the Philadelphia Navy Yard from 12 April-14 May followed by two weeks of liberty at New York, the tender then escorted submarines , , , and from New London to the Panama Canal from 3–27 June. She spent the next year operating on "detached service", presumably providing repair and support services to submarines up and down the east coast. On 17 July 1920, the Navy adopted the alphanumeric system of hull classification and identification, and ''Beaver'' was designated AS-5. The tender's only unusual duty came in September, when she assisted the unsuccessful attempt to salvage submarine that had sunk off the Delaware Capes on the 1st. In December 1920, ''Beaver'' received orders to repeat her 1919 service by escorting six S-boats of SubDiv 18 to the Pacific. This time, however, she was to convoy them all the way to the Philippine Islands. After several months of preparation, the division sailed via the Panama Canal and San Pedro, California, to Hawaii. From there, the tender and her charges made the long non-stop run from Hawaii to Guam. After a stop for fuel and supplies at Apra, the division arrived off Sangley Point in Manila Bay on 1 December 1921. Over the next six months, the tender's crew helped improve the submarine base at Cavite and supported local operations by the division's diesel boats. On 5 June 1922, Beaver sailed for the west coast via the "Great Circle Course" across the central Pacific. In between visits to Guam and Hawaii, she paid a brief call at Wake Island on the 19th to make a survey of the island. One officer on the survey team, Lieutenant Commander Sherwood Picking from the Aeronautical Test Laboratory in Washington, D.C., later wrote, from "a strategic point of view, Wake Island could not be better located, dividing as it does with Midway, the passage from Honolulu to Guam into almost exact thirds." The survey concluded that some dredging and blasting would be necessary for Wake Island to serve as a submarine base. After reaching San Pedro on 14 July, the tender received orders to continue on to the east coast. Departing San Pedro on the 25th, ''Beaver'' escorted eight H-boats and four L-boats south toward the Panama Canal. As the submarines were small, and suffered from engine breakdowns, the tender had to tow as many as three submarines at a time during the long stretches between ports. The convoy stopped at Magdalena Bay and Acapulco in Mexico and at Corinto, Nicaragua, before mooring at Coco Solo in the Canal Zone on 28 August. Following two weeks of repairs, the convoy transited the canal on 11 September and arrived at Hampton Roads, Virginia, via Key West, Florida, on the 29th. Assigned to SubDiv 17, the tender spent the next six months operating in Atlantic waters. She escorted her submarine charges to Norfolk, Virginia, New York, Newport, Rhode Island, and Portsmouth that fall, before ending the year at the submarine base in New London. Transferred to SubDiv 11, Beaver then convoyed that division to the West Indies in January 1923 for the annual "fleet problem", the fleet maneuvers that served as the culmination of the training year. In February–March, in company with and , the submarine tender supported operations in the Gulf of Panama as the submarines attempted to "defend the Canal Zone" in war games against the Battle Fleet. In April, the Commander, Submarine Division, Pacific, transferred his flag from ''Camden'' to ''Beaver''. The tender then joined SubDiv 16, consisting of six of the new S-boats, and escorted them back through the canal and on to San Pedro, arriving there at the end of the month. On 9 June, ''Beaver'' and four of her S-boats sailed north for a cruise in Alaskan waters. This was the first visit by American submarines to this region, and the squadron spent nearly three months surveying the straits and coastal islands for a possible submarine base. In mid-August, after a stop at Vancouver, British Columbia, the squadron visited Astoria, Oregon, to look over a site contemplated for another submarine base. Finally, ''Beaver'' and her charges returned to San Pedro on 25 August. The tender supported local submarine operations off California for the remainder of the year. On 2 January 1924, ''Beaver'', in company with ten submarines of SubDivs 16 and 17, steamed south from San Pedro for another fleet exercise in the West Indies. Unlike the previous spring, however, this time the submarines sailed in company with the Battle Fleet, which had been operating in the Pacific since the previous year. The submarines first made the long non-stop cruise to Balboa, Canal Zone, on the Pacific side of the transisthmian waterway. Then the entire force steamed thence through the canal to participate in extensive war games in the West Indies with the Scouting Fleet. In addition to operations at sea, the submarine divisions visited Haiti, the Virgin Islands, and Trinidad. The tender and her charges returned to San Diego, via the canal, in May 1924 and remained there through the end of the year. ''Beaver'' got underway from Mare Island, California on 14 April 1925, bound ultimately for the Asiatic Station. In company with five submarines of SubDiv 16, she first stopped at Honolulu for maneuvers with the Battle Fleet in Hawaiian waters. The following month, after turning over the flag of Pacific Submarines to ''Savannah'', ''Beaver'' sailed for the Philippines with six S-boats of SubDiv 16, arriving at Manila on 12 July. Over the next seven years, ''Beaver'' tended SubDiv 16 in Philippine and Chinese waters. As service on the Asiatic Station was influenced by the monsoon seasons, the tender followed a standard pattern of annual operations. In the spring and summer, she shifted base from Manila Bay to Tsingtao, China, and supported submarine cruises up and down the Chinese coast. These included stops at Hong Kong, Swatow, Amoy, Shanghai, Weihai, and Tientsin. From the latter port, leave parties often visited Peking. In the fall and winter, as the monsoons moved southwest toward French Indochina and the Dutch East Indies, the tender and her charges shifted back to the Philippines for operations out of Cavite. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Beaver (AS-5)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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