Figure 1: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway in Puget Sound, Washington, on 3 July 1946, two days before commissioning. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway in Puget Sound on 3 July 1946, two days before commissioning. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway in Puget Sound on 3 July 1946, two days before commissioning. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway in the early 1950s. The ship lacks her 5-inch gun, which was removed in 1951, but still displays a World War II-style small hull number. The quadruple 40-mm gun mount on her fantail was probably added in a 1948 yard period. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Valcour (AVP-55) viewed from a taxiing seaplane in an undated photograph probably taken no later than 1960. An aviation insignia was added in the mid- or late-1950s adjacent to her hull number. Her main battery consists of two quadruple 40-mm mounts, one forward and one aft, and two twin 40-mm mounts amidships. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Valcour (AVP-55) shown before departing her base at Little Creek, Virginia, for her fourteenth Middle East deployment in mid-1963. She now has a tripod foremast with a modern air search radar, new ECM antennas around the stack, and a large communications antenna and a new deckhouse in place of her after 40-mm gun mount, all probably fitted in an overhaul around 1960. She retains an aviation insignia adjacent to her hull number. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger number.
Figure 7: USS Valcour (AVP-55) conducting a highline transfer with USS Boston (CAG-1) on 10 May 1964. She no longer displays an aviation insignia adjacent to her hull number, probably because of her administrative transfer from an aviation to a cruiser-destroyer type commander in January 1964. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway around 1964-1965. Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1969. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: USS Valcour (AVP-55) underway in a photograph released in September 1965. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Valcour (AGF-1) departing Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 18 April 1966 for her new home port of Bahrain. This, her sixteenth Middle East deployment, lasted until she returned to Norfolk in 1972 to decommission. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: USS Valcour (AGF-1) underway with awnings spread after 1965. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: USS Valcour (AGF-1) underway in July 1970. Official US Navy Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 13: USS Valcour (AGF-1) shown in her final configuration, in a photograph released in November 1972. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 14: Ex-USS Valcour (AGF-1) hulk moored at the Solomons Branch of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory after being towed there from Norfolk on 20 March 1973. Ex-Valcour was used to study the effects of electro-magnetic pulses on her electronic equipment at the EMPRESS facility at Point Patience. The poles of this facility, which transmitted EMP signals to the ship, are visible in the background. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 15: USS Valcour (AVP-55) Crew Fighting Tanker Fire. Valcour's fire and rescue party cooling down the deck of the Italian tanker Argea Prima in May 1955 after controlling a fire with portable fire-fighting equipment. The tanker, carrying 72,000 barrels of crude oil, had caught fire after a Dutch freighter collided with it in the entrance to the Persian Gulf. After four hours of work, Valcour was able to return the tanker to its crew, which had abandoned it following the collision. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 16: USS Valcour (AVP-55) Liberty Party in the Seychelles Islands. Valcour's boat carrying sailors in 1960 during the first visit of a US Navy ship to the Seychelles Islands in 48 years. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 17: USS Valcour (AGF-1) Gun Crew at General Quarters. The crew of a 40-mm twin mount practicing loading procedures while Valcour was on station in the Red Sea during the 1967 Middle East crisis. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 18: Sheikh Isa bin Sulman Al-Khalifa, the ruler of Bahrain, departing USS Valcour (AGF-1) on 5 April 1967 after an official visit to Rear Admiral Earl R. Eastwold, USN, Commander Middle East Force. The Sheikh, his brother, and other dignitaries lunched on board with the Admiral. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 19: Insignia of USS Valcour (AGF-1) as supplied by the ship in April 1970. Its features include a dhow, common in Middle East waters; numeral "1" for Valcour's hull number; Admiral's two-star pennant, representing her flagship assignment; and a map of the Persian Gulf where she was based. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after a small island in Lake Champlain, New York, the 1,776-ton USS Valcour (AVP-55) was a Barnegat class small seaplane tender that was built by the Lake Washington Shipyard at Houghton, Washington, and was commissioned on 5 July 1946. The ship was approximately 310 feet long and 41 feet wide, had a top speed of 18.5 knots, and had a crew of 367 officers and men. Valcour was armed initially with one 5-inch gun, eight 40-mm guns, and eight 20-mm cannons, but this armament was drastically reduced later in her career.
After completing her shakedown cruise off San Diego, California, Valcour was sent to the east coast in September 1946 to join the US Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. She was based at Norfolk, Virginia, and made occasional visits to Quonset Point, Rhode Island; Cristobal, Panama Canal Zone; and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and tended to sea planes in those locations until 1949.
Valcour was designated as the flagship for the Commander of the Middle East Force and left Norfolk on 29 August 1949 for the first of an amazing sixteen deployments to the Middle East. The ship steamed across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and then transited the Suez Canal. Valcour stopped at Aden on 24 September and then went on to visit ports throughout the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. As the Middle East flagship, Valcour acted as the command post, living facility, and communications center for the Commander of the Middle East Force and his staff of 15 officers. As a good-will gesture to the nations in the region, Valcour distributed medicine, clothing, textbooks, and domestic machinery (such as sewing machines) to the needy. In addition, Valcour and her crew assisted in the construction of orphanages and schools and entertained dignitaries, military representatives, and local government officials. Valcour also kept a close watch on merchant shipping lanes in the area, was available to rescue ships in distress, and evacuated American citizens from unstable nations in the region during times of crisis. Valcour left the Persian Gulf on 6 March 1950 and returned to Norfolk via the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic Ocean. After completing an overhaul and a brief training assignment, Valcour returned to the Middle East and once again became the flagship for the Commander of the Middle East Force from 5 September 1950 to 15 March 1951.
On 14 May 1951, two months after returning from her second Middle East deployment, Valcour was leaving Norfolk on a training exercise when she suffered a steering malfunction. Without the ability to turn, the ship collided with the collier SS Thomas Tracy, which was sailing nearby just off Cape Henry, Virginia. Thomas Tracy tried to turn away from Valcour, but the collier’s bow soon crashed into Valcour’s starboard side, rupturing an aviation gasoline fuel tank. An enormous fire soon broke out on board Valcour, with the burning aviation gasoline engulfing much of the ship. Making matters worse, the seaplane tender’s hull was torn open and water was pouring into the ship. A number of men, fearing being incinerated by the flames, jumped overboard, only to drown in the fierce currents that swirled around the ship. At one point, the situation looked so bad that Valcour’s commanding officer, Captain Eugene Tatom, gave the order to abandon ship. Fortunately, the crew of the collier Thomas Tracy managed to contain a fire in her forward hold and the ship limped to Newport News, Virginia, with no casualties.
Valcour became the center of a large recue and salvage operation, with the submarine rescue ship USS Sunbird (ASR-15) and the Coast Guard Tug Cherokee (WAT-165) rushing out to the scene to offer assistance. Fire and rescue parties from both ships, along with members of Valcour’s crew who remained on board the stricken vessel, eventually managed to bring the fire under control and stop the flooding. Sadly, the collision and fire on board Valcour claimed 36 lives. Valcour was towed back to Norfolk where she underwent a massive overhaul over the next few months to not only repair the damage, but also to modernize the ship. During the overhaul, major changes were made to Valcour. Air conditioning was installed throughout the ship and her forward 5-inch gun was removed. New and improved electronic equipment was also added to the ship. All of the construction work was completed on 4 December 1951.
After that, from 1952 to 1965, Valcour deployed every year to the Middle East as one of a trio of special ships that served alternately as the flagship for the Commander of the Middle East Force. Valcour slipped into a regular routine as the years went by. She would leave Norfolk in January, relieve USS Duxbury Bay (AVP-38) as flagship when she arrived on station in the Persian Gulf, and return to Norfolk after being relieved by USS Greenwich Bay (AVP-41) in August. Some of the highlights of her deployments to the Middle East included assisting a damaged cargo ship in the Indian Ocean in 1953 and then escorting that ship to Bombay during a massive typhoon. Valcour came to the rescue of a burning and abandoned Italian oil tanker, the Argea Prim, in May 1955 and managed to extinguish the fires and salvage the ship and its cargo. The seaplane tender also visited the Seychelles Islands in 1960, the first such visit to the islands by a US warship in 48 years.
In 1960, Valcour was modernized yet again. She received a tripod mast, a new air search radar, and a tall communications antenna which, along with its deckhouse, replaced the quadruple 40-mm gun mount on her fantail. Valcour completed her fifteenth Middle East deployment in March 1965. That same year, both Duxbury Bay and Greenwich Bay were decommissioned and Valcour became the only Middle East flagship in the US Navy. She was reclassified AGF-1 in December 1965 and left the United States for her new home port in Bahrain in April 1966. Valcour served there until January 1972, when she was selected for inactivation. Valcour was relieved by USS La Salle (AGF-3) in November 1972 and returned to Norfolk. USS Valcour was decommissioned in January 1973 and in March her stripped hulk was towed to Solomons Island, Maryland, where it was used by the Naval Ordnance Laboratory for electromagnetic pulse experiments. The ship was finally sold for scrap in June of 1977.
Figure 20: USS Valcour (AVP-55) illuminated at night on 17 April 1954, probably in a Middle East port. Her hull number is larger than it was earlier in the 1950s. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
USS Valcour is seen here all lit up at night, just like a Christmas tree! Merry Christmas to all and have a Happy New Year.
