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USS Aeolus (ARC 3)

USS AEOLUS was built and commissioned as an attack cargo ship. Originally named TURANDOT (AKA 47), she served for less than a year between 1945 and 1946 mostly doing "magic carpet" voyages in the Pacific. Decommissioned and laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, the ship was reaquired by the Navy on November 4, 1954, and was converted to a Cable Repair Ship by Key Highway Plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company at Baltimore. Renamed AEOLUS, she was recommissioned on March 14, 1955. In the early 1960s, the AEOLUS underwent another conversion during with her masts and superstructures were modified. On October 1, 1973, the AEOLUS was transfered to the Military Sealift Command (MSC). She served in the Navy for a few more years until she was decommissioned for the last time. Stricken from the Navy list on March 28, 1985, the AEOLUS was transfered to the state of North Carolina on December 24, 1987, and was sunk as an artificial reef in August 1988. The AEOLUS is located approx. 22 miles from the Beaufort inlet in 110 feet of water and can be explored by divers.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS AEOLUS. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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USS AEOLUS History:

USS AEOLUS began her career during the closing months of World War II as the ARTEMIS-class attack cargo ship USS TURANDOT (AKA 47). She was laid down under Maritime Commission contract as MC hull 1908 by the Walsh-Kaiser Company at Providence, Rhode Island, on March 29, 1945. She was launched on May 20, 1945, sponsored by Mrs. Charles H. MacLeod, and commissioned as USS TURANDOT on June 18, 1945, with Lieutenant Commander Francklyn W. C. Zwicker, USNR, in command. With the Navy rapidly reducing its enormous wartime fleet and the relatively new attack cargo ship no longer required for active service, USS TURANDOT was decommissioned on March 21, 1946. She was transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal on June 25 and placed in reserve. Her name was formally stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 17, 1947.

The ship remained inactive for more than eight years. During that period, the emerging Cold War produced an entirely different requirement that ultimately returned the former attack cargo ship to naval service. The United States Navy was developing a long-range passive underwater acoustic surveillance network for detecting and tracking submarines. The system became known as the Sound Surveillance System, or SOSUS, while Project Caesar was associated with its development, installation and support. Establishing the network required extensive bathymetric surveying as well as specialized ships capable of transporting, laying, retrieving and repairing long lengths of submarine cable in deep water.

On November 4, 1954, the Navy reacquired the former USS TURANDOT for conversion to a cable repair ship. The work was performed by the Bethlehem Steel Company at its Key Highway facility in Baltimore, Maryland. The conversion represented a fundamental change in the ship's function. Her amphibious cargo-handling arrangements and wartime armament were removed or extensively modified, and specialized equipment was installed for handling submarine cables.

The conversion was undertaken as SCB Project 138. Three large cable tanks or wells were incorporated into the ship. Each could accommodate approximately 20 nautical miles of five-inch armored cable or, depending upon the type carried, as much as approximately 250 nautical miles of coaxial cable. Large cable sheaves were installed at the bow, with cable machinery located immediately aft on the forecastle. A cable measuring and testing room allowed specialists to continuously monitor cable during laying operations. Civilian engineers and technical specialists could embark as required to work with the Navy crew during cable and survey missions.

A distinctive feature of the converted ship was that her principal cable-handling equipment was concentrated at the bow. She lacked comparable cable machinery at the stern. This arrangement complicated some types of cable work and could require the vessel to be towed stern-first during particular laying evolutions. Large cable buoys were carried forward and could be handled using equipment along the sides of the ship. A helicopter platform was later fitted aft, increasing the ship's utility during widely dispersed ocean operations.

The former USS TURANDOT was renamed USS AEOLUS and redesignated ARC 3 on March 17, 1955. The name referred to Aeolus, the figure associated with the winds in Greek mythology. USS AEOLUS was commissioned at Baltimore on May 14, 1955, with Commander Merrill M. Sanford in command. Her normal Navy complement during the cable-ship period was approximately nine officers and 196 enlisted personnel, supplemented by civilian cable and survey specialists when required. USS THOR (ARC 4), converted from another ARTEMIS-class attack cargo ship, subsequently became her sister ship in the Navy's cable fleet.

For almost the first year following commissioning, USS AEOLUS operated along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies. The period included shakedown training followed by cable and survey work. Much of the detailed operational information concerning these missions was not publicly released because the ship's work was closely connected with the classified undersea surveillance program. Consequently, public records often describe her employment simply as cable, survey or special operations without identifying the exact cable routes, arrays or underwater installations involved.

USS AEOLUS departed Norfolk on February 27, 1956, for an extended assignment in the Pacific. She transited the Panama Canal on March 3 and continued to San Francisco, California, which became the base for approximately three years of Pacific cable and survey operations. Her work during this period coincided with the expansion of the Sound Surveillance System into the Pacific. The ship remained based at San Francisco until March 2, 1959, when she departed to return to the Atlantic. She again passed through the Panama Canal and called at Norfolk before proceeding north. Late in March, she arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which became her new home port. From there, USS AEOLUS spent the following three years conducting cable and survey operations along the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies.

USS AEOLUS was also periodically handled at the Boston Naval Shipyard, which served as an important maintenance and modification facility for the ship despite her Portsmouth home port. During the early 1960s, her appearance changed substantially. The original attack-cargo-ship quadrupod mast was removed, a new after mast was fitted and alterations were made to the upper bridge to improve the arrangement for cable operations. Photographic documentation places USS AEOLUS at the East Boston annex of the Boston Naval Shipyard in March 1961 with these alterations visible, and she was photographed underway in Boston Harbor on May 31, 1961.

The cable ship remained based at Portsmouth while performing Atlantic and Caribbean work until June 1962, when she departed for another temporary assignment in the Pacific. The deployment had initially been expected to last approximately three months and was to be conducted from San Francisco, but a series of unforeseen events kept USS AEOLUS in the Pacific considerably longer.

When the ship initially began her return voyage in September 1962, she was involved in a collision with a merchant oil tanker and suffered damage that required repairs. Repairs continued into late October. Once the work had been completed, USS AEOLUS again began moving toward the Panama Canal, but she was recalled before completing the return voyage because emergency cable work had become necessary.

After carrying out the additional assignment, USS AEOLUS returned briefly to San Francisco. Following a stop of approximately six hours to take on provisions, she departed on December 11, 1962, for Portsmouth. She spent Christmas underway in the Atlantic and finally moored at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on December 28, bringing the unexpectedly prolonged Pacific assignment to an end. After approximately six weeks devoted to leave and upkeep, USS AEOLUS shifted from Portsmouth to the Boston Naval Shipyard in mid-February 1963 for a regular overhaul. The work lasted through the spring. Repairs and post-overhaul shakedown training were completed by the end of the first week of June, after which the ship resumed operations from Portsmouth.

During the following two years, USS AEOLUS continued the pattern of special cable and survey work centered primarily on the North Atlantic. The exact locations of many operations remained omitted from contemporary public reporting because the cable network was an important element of United States antisubmarine warfare capabilities during the Cold War. In 1964, USS AEOLUS also participated in an unusual project involving a nuclear-powered underwater acoustic device. The Navy had obtained a SNAP-7E radioisotope power system from the United States Atomic Energy Commission for use with an implanted acoustic beacon. USS AEOLUS deployed the device in deep water off Bermuda. It was installed in approximately 16,000 feet of water and secured as part of an anchoring arrangement that included anchors weighing about 6,000 and 2,000 pounds and approximately four nautical miles of connecting line. The device later failed prematurely, eventually resulting in a difficult recovery operation several years later.

During the summer of 1965, USS AEOLUS returned to the Pacific for another temporary assignment. This deployment took her to the Aleutian Islands and lasted several months. She returned to Portsmouth in November 1965 and resumed Atlantic operations.

The ship continued Atlantic cable work into 1966. During August, she visited Rota, Spain, and Lisbon, Portugal, providing two specifically documented European port calls during a period in which much of her actual operational work otherwise remains described only in general terms. Navy aviation records from the period also show helicopter support associated with USS AEOLUS, whose aft helicopter platform allowed rotary-wing aircraft to support personnel and logistics movements during remote operations.

Between October and December 1966, USS AEOLUS again received a temporary assignment in the Pacific. After completing that mission, she returned to Atlantic employment. Operations during 1967 were concentrated in the northern Atlantic. One specific 1967 mission can be confirmed through the history of another participating vessel. In June, the fleet ocean tug USS UTINA (ATF 163) departed for Iceland to assist USS AEOLUS in what the official record describes only as a "special project". The lack of further operational detail reflects the sensitivity surrounding many cable and underwater-surveillance activities of the period. USS UTINA completed her part in the assignment and returned to Norfolk on July 13. USS AEOLUS continued northern Atlantic cable operations during the year.

In May 1968, USS AEOLUS again transited the Panama Canal for special operations in the Pacific. The assignment occupied the remainder of the year. After completing the Pacific assignment, USS AEOLUS returned through the Panama Canal and reached Portsmouth on January 12, 1969. Later in 1969, the ship was assigned to recover the SNAP-7E acoustic beacon system that she had placed off Bermuda in 1964. Because the nuclear power unit had failed prematurely, the Atomic Energy Commission wanted the equipment recovered so the cause of the failure could be examined.

USS AEOLUS began the recovery operation on November 23, 1969. Working in water approximately 16,000 feet deep presented a substantial technical challenge. On the third pass across the line leading from the smaller anchor toward the device, the ship successfully engaged the system and began bringing it to the surface. During the heavy lift the maximum measured tension reached approximately 104,000 pounds. After the equipment was recovered, personnel checked it for radioactive contamination or leakage before securing it aboard. The recovered SNAP-7E equipment was subsequently transported to Rhode Island for technical examination. The operation was significant enough to be included by the Naval Ship Systems Command in its review of important Navy salvage operations for 1969.

Much of USS AEOLUS's activity during the early 1970s remains difficult to reconstruct in comparable detail because individual cable missions were still closely associated with sensitive undersea surveillance work. Her record of decorations nevertheless confirms several periods of particularly significant service. The ship received a Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation for service from March 4 through March 18, 1970. A second Meritorious Unit Commendation covered the period from August 16 through October 9, 1971. A third was awarded for service between June 18 and July 31, 1973.

By this period, USS AEOLUS had spent well over fifteen years performing demanding cable operations in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Before transfer to civilian operation under the Military Sealift Command, the ship underwent an extensive modernization and overhaul at the Boston Naval Shipyard during the 1972-1973 period. The work lasted approximately ten months and was intended both to renew aging ship systems and prepare her for continued service under MSC. The modernization included installation of updated cable-handling machinery as well as new ship-service generators and auxiliary equipment. The freshwater distilling plant was replaced with a larger-capacity system. The engineering plant and boilers underwent overhaul, while alterations were made to working and living spaces to improve their suitability for the ship's continuing cable mission. Records from the Boston Naval Shipyard also document testing of USS AEOLUS's cable machinery during this period.

Following completion of the modernization, USS AEOLUS returned to operational service and deployed again to European waters during the summer of 1973. This period overlapped with the service for which she received her third Meritorious Unit Commendation.

USS AEOLUS returned to Portsmouth from the European deployment on September 21, 1973. Preparations immediately began for the end of her commissioned Navy service and her transfer to the Military Sealift Command. On October 1, USS AEOLUS was decommissioned and simultaneously transferred to MSC. She then became USNS AEOLUS (T-ARC 3), operated by a civilian civil-service crew while continuing to perform specialized cable work for the Navy. The transition did not end her operational career. Instead, USNS AEOLUS continued serving as a cable repair and laying ship within the Military Sealift Command's special-mission fleet. Civilian mariners operated the ship while Navy and civilian technical specialists could embark as required for specific cable, acoustic or survey assignments. The work continued to support the Navy's undersea surveillance and communications infrastructure.

USNS AEOLUS was documented underway off Norfolk, Virginia, on April 4, 1974, during her first year of MSC operation. During the following decade, she continued active cable service, although the publicly available record contains comparatively few detailed itineraries. This scarcity of published port and operational information is consistent with the continuing sensitivity of the undersea surveillance mission rather than evidence that the ship was inactive.

By the late 1970s, however, the Navy had begun examining the long-term future of its cable fleet. USNS AEOLUS retained limitations inherited from the World War II attack-cargo hull. Her relatively shallow draft and substantial exposed side area complicated precise station keeping in difficult weather. She lacked modern thrusters, and her cable machinery was concentrated at the bow rather than providing the ability to perform the full range of cable-laying, retrieval, repair and plowing operations over both bow and stern. Navy planners concluded that another major modernization of the aging ship would provide limited value compared with acquiring a purpose-built replacement.

Consequently, the Navy requested a new cable ship under the Fiscal Year 1979 program. The resulting vessel was USNS ZEUS (T-ARC 7), which was designed from the outset specifically for submarine cable operations. Compared with USNS AEOLUS, the new ship incorporated improved station-keeping, maneuvering and cable-handling capabilities as well as the ability to work cable at both ends of the vessel.

USNS ZEUS entered the Military Sealift Command special-mission force in 1984. Her arrival allowed the Navy to retire the approximately 40-year-old USNS AEOLUS. Despite her age, USNS AEOLUS was still listed among Military Sealift Command's cable-repair vessels during the final stage of her career alongside other specialized undersea-support ships.

USNS AEOLUS was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on February 28, 1985. She remained associated with Military Sealift Command until May, when she was finally placed out of active service. On May 7, title to the ship passed to the Maritime Administration. The former cable ship was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at the James River anchorage near Fort Eustis, Virginia. The ship remained in the James River reserve fleet after retirement. She was subsequently selected for transfer to North Carolina for use as an artificial reef. By December 24, 1987, the former USNS AEOLUS had been delivered by the Maritime Administration for this purpose.

After preparation for sinking, the former USS AEOLUS was scuttled off the North Carolina coast on July 29, 1988. She came to rest at the artificial reef site now designated AR-305, approximately 28 nautical miles south of Beaufort Inlet in about 105 to 110 feet of water. The wreck became a habitat for marine life as well as a site used by recreational fishermen and divers. Hurricane Fran later altered the wreck substantially when it passed the North Carolina coast in 1996, shifting and breaking portions of the hull.

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