USS Mackinac (AVP-13)

Figure 1:   A port bow view of USS Mackinac (AVP-13) underway off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, on 16 September 1943. She had just completed an overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image. 

Figure 2:   USS Mackinac (AVP-13) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, on 16 September 1943 upon completion of an overhaul. She received a third 5-inch gun aft and her 1.1-inch quadruple mount was replaced by one 40-mm quadruple and two 40-mm twin mounts. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 3:   USS Mackinac (AVP-13) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, on 16 September 1943 upon completion of an overhaul. The 5-inch gun on the fantail and the 40-mm quadruple mount just forward of it were added during this overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 4:   A bow view of USS Mackinac (AVP-13) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, on 16 September 1943. She had just completed an overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.  

Figure 5:  A stern view of USS Mackinac (AVP-13) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, on 16 September 1943. She had just completed an overhaul. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image. 

Figure 6:  USS Mackinac (AVP-13) tending seaplanes in the Pacific in late 1943 or in 1944. Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.

Figure 7:  USS Mackinac as she looked after being transferred to the US Coast Guard. Here, the now USCGC Mackinac (WAVP-371) is seen steaming underway, circa 1960, location unknown. Official US Coast Guard photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.

Named after an island in northern Michigan, the 1,766-ton USS Mackinac was a Barnegat class small seaplane tender that was built by the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington, and was commissioned on 24 January 1942. The ship was approximately 311 feet long and 41 feet wide, had a top speed of 18 knots, and had a crew of 215 officers and men. Mackinac was originally armed with two 5-inch guns, eight 40-mm guns, and eight 20-mm guns, but this armament changed dramatically later on in her career.

After completing her shakedown cruise, Mackinac left America’s west coast on 11 May 1942 and assisted in escorting a large convoy to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, arriving there on 19 May. On 22 May, the famous explorer Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd and his staff boarded the ship for an inspection cruise of US bases in the South Pacific. The seaplane tender made it to Auckland, New Zealand, on 23 June and Noumea, New Caledonia, on 18 July.

In August 1942, Mackinac began supporting the American invasion of the Solomon Islands. The ship helped set up several advanced bases for seaplanes. At one of these new bases, two Japanese submarines surfaced and shelled Mackinac and the seaplane tender USS Ballard (AVD-10), along with their seaplanes. Both ships immediately returned fire and the submarines left the area, with neither side suffering any damage. In July 1943, Mackinac left Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides and returned to the United States for an overhaul, arriving at San Francisco, California, on 25 July.

After the overhaul was completed in September 1943, Mackinac sailed to Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 28 September. In late November 1943, Mackinac was sent to the Gilbert Islands, arriving off the island of Tarawa on 1 December. The ship tended to seaplanes there until the end of January 1944, despite enduring (and surviving) roughly 22 enemy air raids on the island.

Mackinac went on to participate in a series of amphibious assaults in the central Pacific, culminating in the attack on Okinawa in 1945. This deployment was interrupted only by two months of repairs at San Diego, California, in early 1945. After Japan surrendered in September 1945, Mackinac was assigned to occupation duties in Japan until January 1946. She then proceeded to Orange, Texas, arriving there on 26 March. In January 1947, the ship was decommissioned and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

In April 1949, Mackinac was transferred to the US Coast Guard and became the USCGC (US Coast Guard cutter) Mackinac (WAVP-371, later WHEC-371). The ship was substantially altered for patrol duties, retaining only a single 5-inch gun, two .50-caliber machine guns, and one Mark 11 antisubmarine projector. The crew also was reduced from 215 to 149 officers and men. Mackinac was based at New York City, New York, and her primary duty was to serve as a weather ship at various locations in the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, she conducted search-and-rescue and law enforcement operations and provided navigational and communication assistance to aircraft.

Mackinac was decommissioned for the last time on 28 December 1967 and was placed in storage at the Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay, Maryland. On 21 July 1968, the Coast Guard returned the ship to the Navy and she was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register that same day. The Navy sank Mackinac as a target off the coast of Virginia on 23 July 1968. Even though four ships (including the heavy cruiser USS Newport News, CA-148) scored direct gunfire hits and one of the ships hit the target with a Terrier missile, Mackinac proved hard to sink. Her hull remained largely intact when the ship finally succumbed to her damage and slipped beneath the waves. USS Mackinac received six battle stars for her service during World War II.