Canisteo (AO 99) - Naval Cruise Book

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Ordered to Guatanamo Bay again, CANISTEO left Norfolk in June of 1970. Enroute, however, she received new orders dispatching her to rendezvous with the USS GUAM (LPH 9), which was flying disaster assistance missions to earthquake-ravaged Peru. CANISTEO passed through the Panama Canal, cross- ed he equator and met the GUAM long enough to refuel her. She then turned immediately around to retrace her track. Twenty-six days, two oceans and six thousand miles later she tied up in Norfolk When she finally did reach Gitmo she received the highest grade awarded any ship type in over two and one half yeo ' s CANISTEO spent most of the seventies passing between the Second Fleet and the Sixth Fleet and excelling in both. During her 1972-73 deployment she had the reputation of providing the best quality fuels in the Mediterranean. In the ten years between 1969 and 1978, she earned the following efficiency awards: eight In Engineering, five in Battle, four in Communications, two in CIC, one in Supply and one in Seamanship. She was named Second Fleet Top Overall Operator in 1977 for her performance in that year ' s CARIBEX exercise Returning from her 1978-79 Med deployment, CANISTEO received the nickname Supership Can-Do, when her fleet, group and squadron commanders in both the Sec- ond and the Sixth Fleets addressed her as such in commending messages. CANISTEO spent most of the 1980 ' s making short patrols to North Atlantic and Caribbean operating areas. In the Caribbean in 1986 and 1987, she earn- ed two successive Meritorious Unit Commendations from the Coast Guard for the assistance she ren- dered in countering ille gal drug smuggling efforts. In late 1987 CANISTEO earned uncommon praise during a deployment to the Mediterranean. Enroute to the Med she aided the salvage ship USS GRAPPLE towing minesweepers to the Persian Gulf. GRAPPLE had encountered heavy weather and was running low on fuel CANISTEO devised on impromptu rig to refuel GRAPPLE without wasting time breaking her tows. Commander. Naval Surface Force, Atlantic Fleet placed this accomplishment in a class by it- self After only two months in the Med, she was again at the head of the fleet, delivering fuel, ammo and goods thirty to fifty percent faster than the Sixth Fleet was accustomed. The commander of the logistics ships attached to the Sixth Fleet identi- fied CANISTEO ' s performance as a benchmark for fleet, and her operational commander claimed she was the best logistics ship he had ever seen. The USS CANISTEO is many things to many peo- ple. To the sailor first reporting aboard, she is a name often mispronounced. To the worker at Cra- ney Island Fuel Depot she is just another oiler to be loaded. To the destroyer riding high and rough, she is the ship showing hull down on the horizon ready to supply fuel, bring moil from home, exchange movies and give a friendly greeting in the middle of the sea. For her engineers, she requires many long hours to maintain her aging plant. For the rest of the crew, she requires equally long hours on the rigs and at un- rep stations. For all of us, though, she is home for a good port of our time, with all the happiness, sorrow and peace that any home offers. CANISTEO carries no big guns, no supersonic air- craft, and no missile launchers, but she does carry the fuel, weapons and supplies which give the fight- ing ships their long arms and legs. And we know when they pull away fat and heavy that we are on indispensible member of the United States Navy.

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History of the USS CANISTEO (AO 99) The history of the CANISTEO is a 42-year saga of versatility, support and dependability. Built by Bethle- hem-Sparrows Point Shipyard under a U.S. Maritime Commission contract, she received a commission on 3 December, 1945 under the command of LCDR E. L. Denton, USNR. She is the next to the last ship built in a class of 24 oilers v hich v» as originally designed in the mid 1930s for Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. CANISTEO ' s first year set the pace for the rest of her history. On her maiden assignment she delivered diesel fuel to the Allied occupation forces in Ger- many. She returned west to spend time training in the Caribbean before she sailed north to Greenland and Iceland. She concluded her first year of service by steaming south through the Panama Canal to the opposite end of the earth, where she played a criti- cal role in Operation High Jump, the largest scien- tific expedition ever to explore Antarctica at the time. Supplying fuel to the fleet is CANISTEO ' s primary mission, but by no means is it her only one. In her early history she played a particularly major role in transferring personnel from one ship to another. In 1957 while operating with the Sixth Fleet, she per- formed what is believed to be a record for trans- ferring personnel by highline at sea: a total of 254 persons in less than 24 hours. CANISTEO has a long history for aiding ships in distress. In 1946 she towed a disabled merchantman to safety. Nine years later in August 1955, the U.S. Maritime Administration commended CANISTEO for her help extinguishing a fire on the SS JOHN STEPHEN- SON. Her premier rescue occurred in the late Janu- ary of 1961, when the modern-day pirate Henrique Galvao and 50-100 armed men seized the Portu- guese luxury liner SANTA MARIA. CANISTEO chased the pirates 3000 miles and was present in Recife, Brazil for their capture. During September and October of 1965 CANIS- TEO entered the realm of Boreas Rex while operat- ing in the North Atlantic, whereupon all crew mem- bers became true ice- and brine-encrusted Bluenoses. The following month, she again pro- ceeded to the opposite end of the earth to South Africa, where she replenished American naval units returning from the Far East. On the completion on this 14,000 mile deployment, CANISTEO returned to Norfolk manned entirely by a crew of Bluenosed Shellbacks. In January 1967 CANISTEO returned to her birth- place at Bethlehem Steel Shipyard, where she had her forward superstructure and a hull section amid- ships removed and replaced. The main deck, previ- ously open on the sides and covered by a wooden deck on the 01 level, was now enclosed entirely in steel. The Navy ' s new electro-hydraulic winches and rigs replaced the steam winches and first-generation unrep gear. Most importantly though, she was 91 feet longer and capable of carrying not only fuel, but refrigerated and dry stores, bottled gases, lube oils, 600 tons of ammunition and over 6.7 million gal- lons of jet and diesel fuels. Returning to the fleet in January 1969, the now AOJ(Jumbo)-99 reasserted her place. After leaving refresher training in Cuba with the highest score earned by on auxiliary in years, she reported to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. During seven months in the Med, 1969-1970, CANISTEO provided replenishment services 341 times, establishing a new record for Sixth Fleet oilers as she worked the bugs out of the Navy ' s new unrep technology.

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Specifications of the CANISTEO. Mission: Crew: Dimensions: Refuel and replenish the fleet at sea. 21 Officers 335 Ennlisted Men Length - 644 feet . ' Beam - 75 feet Draft - 36 feet Propulsion Plant: Electrical Plant: 4 boilers. Twin Shafts 13,500 S.H.P. Maximum speed - 18 knots ' 2 Ship ' s Service Turbogenerators 3 Ship ' s Auxiliary Diesel Genera- tors I Cargo Capoci- ties: Armament: Diesel Fuel Marine - 4,431,369 gallons Jet Fuel (JP-5) - 2,268,780 gollc Frozen Stores - 48.9 tons Dry Stores - 126.7 tons Consumable Materials - 63.8 tc Cargo Ammunition - 550 tons 2 3 50 Caliber Duel Purpose Guns Note: As originally built, CANISTEO carried the follo ing armament: 1 5 38-caliber Dual Purpose Gun 4 3 50-caliber Anti-Aircroft Guns 8 40mm Anti-Aircroft Guns Note: For the deployment to the Med, CANISTEO temporarily carried a electronic warfare (EW) von on the fo ' c ' sle. Additionally, prior to the deployment, she was fitted for two ready-service Stinger Anti-Air- craft Missile Stations, fore and oft. CANISTEO was to receive these shoulder launched weapons, should she have received orders to support the Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean.