Annapolis (AGMR 1) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 6 text:

Wm

Page 5 text:

f 'ff I :Ja I I ,,.A,W,,,,,-...,.,,4,.,,..j, H..--,,,f,7 -., , ,.l.74,.w..,,,,..,,,:.A. .,.. -7. ,, ,J .. - -.ilk--A . 1 1 3 f tx - Fe V, 75, nf , - -V -5 gf G A A i? 2 1 I' i, i J ,. f S? ? ' Awmngf W 5' 5 ' 'f.,.,f . ... , X , ,.u,nr.,'.u-'un-nL..f111Q -1 x ..-sf-nw A-wr 41.1-L.-grfweruarsmrnmu-asm. wwfnammf-r 1, w.-uLw-.xg-fu,-u,n, ...ff..,wxa-wp-wvmnuanaen :muff-fur-rrn.1-nz..-ar.:-n.v4w-Aquijan.-r.,v-wfum..,s-. up aw-un-., ,um

Page 7 text:

H STCRY 0F THE SHIP The decision to give the name ANNAPOLIS to the .N2VY'S first C0111- munications Major Relay Ship came from a suggestion which .emanated from the ofiice of the Director of Naval Communications. The naming of the iirst AGMR after the city' of Annapolis commemorates the establishment of one of the Navy's first wireless stations there in 1902. In addition, Annapolis today is the site of the Navy's oldest existing radio station which IS cur- rently providing the transmitter facilities for the Naval Communications Station in Washington, D. C. I The AGMR-1 is the third ship to bear the name Annapolis. The first ANNAPOLIS was a gun boat commissioned in 1895 which served with dis- tinction in the Spanish-American War and later with the Asiatic Fleet, as a training ship at the Naval Academy. and on patrol in Mexico and Central American waters before being decommissioned in 1919. The second ANNA- POLIS was a patrol frigate, commissioned in December, 1944, which served as a convoy escort ship making convoy runs to Algeria and later being at- tached to the Pacific Fleet where she was decommissioned in 1946 and sold to Mexico. The history of the present ANNAPOLIS began in August of 1962 when the decommissioned Escort Aircraft Carrier, USS GILBERT ISLANDS CCVE- 1071 was towed from her berth at Bayonne, New Jersey, to the New York Naval Shipyard for conversion to the AGMR-1. As a CVE she had seen action in the Pacific during the Okinawa-Gunto operation and Australian operations in Borneo. Now, the 19 year old ship was to be converted and recommissioned to fulfill a vital communication need of the Navy's operating forces. USS ANNAPOLIS CAGMR-15, Auxiliary General Major Relay Number One, is a ship designed' to bring Naval Communications to any Naval unit ashore or afloat, anywhere in the world, with speed and accurracyg to provide a voice for command when and where it is needed. With specially designed antenna systems constructed on her flight deck, the latest in complex com- munications equipment in her newly-constructed communications spaces, capacious fuel tanks and, what is most important, her smoothly functioning and well trained crew of 700, ANNAPOLIS is capable of operating for pro- tracted periods of time in remote corners of the world's oceans, augmenting existing shore communication facilities, temporarily extending essential Naval communication services in areas where they might have been lost or where they may never have existed. . Iier tasks? to provide fleet broadcasts, inter-area relay circuits and relay mrcults for Shlp to Shlp and shi to shore communicati . he is a floatin , , D P ons S S commufucatlons SIHUOH, able to stay beyond the reach ,of hostile powers, not depending upon the whims of reluctant allies, carrying vital communications Wherever 3 Ship Can go and capable of reaching any land area with her powerful transmitters. As her motto states, she is truly VOX MARIS, the Voice of the Sea and the Voice from the Sea, the Voice of Naval Command, the Sound of United States Seapower.