USS Wright (AZ-1/AV-1) was a one-of-a-kind auxiliary ship in the United States Navy, named for aviation pioneer Orville Wright. Originally built as a kite balloon tender, she was converted into a seaplane tender after kite balloons were no longer used.
Construction and commissioning Originally the unnamed "hull no. 680", the ship was laid down at Hog Island, Pennsylvania by the American International Shipbuilding Corporation under a United States Shipping Board contract as a standard EFC 1024 (Hog Island "B" type troopship). Originally named USAT Somme, she was named "Wright" on 20 April 1920 and launched on 28 April. A little over two months later, the Navy signed a contract with the Tietjen and Lang Dry Dock Company of Hoboken, New Jersey to convert the ship to a unique type of auxiliary vessel, a "combined lighter-than-air/heavier-than-air aviation tender." On 17 July 1920, the ship received that classification and was designated AZ-1. Wright was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 16 December 1921. Her first commanding officer was Captain (later Admiral) Alfred W. Johnson, who also discharged the collateral duties of Commander, Air Squadrons, Atlantic Fleet. Johnson was the first of a long line of commanding officers for the ship, some of whom later distinguished themselves; men such as John Rodgers, Ernest J. King, Aubrey W. Fitch, Patrick N. L. Bellinger, and Marc A. Mitscher.
Service history
1922 From the New York Navy Yard, Wright sailed for the Philadelphia Navy Yard and reached there on 22 February 1922. After installation of her armament, the lighter-than-air aircraft tender departed Philadelphia on 2 March, touching at Hampton Roads, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina en route to the Florida coast. Arriving at Key West on 11 March, Wright reported for special duty with the first division of Scouting Squadron 1 – a unit that included the seaplane NC-10 piloted by Lieutenant Clifton A. F. Sprague and a half-dozen Felixstowe F5L seaplanes. Three days later, the tender put to sea for operations with Scouting Division 1 out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There, she was later joined by the six planes of Division 2 and two planes of Division 3.
Wright, fitted out with a unique "balloon well" built into the ship's hull, aft, to enable her to tend a kite balloon assigned to the ship for experimental operations, departed Guantanamo Bay on 10 April and (while en route back to Key West) conducted maneuvers to experiment with the kite observation balloon. A few weeks after Wright reached her destination, the NC-10 flying boat had her bottom sucked out while she attempted to take off and began to sink in of water. A rescue and repair party salvaged the hull and other parts of the seaplane and brought them on board the tender. Two days later, Wright sailed for the Philadelphia Navy Yard and, after brief stops at Norfolk, Virginia and Charleston en route, arrived there on 8 May. Following repairs and alterations at Philadelphia between 8 May and 21 June, Wright headed south and conducted tending operations from Norfolk to Pensacola, Florida, and back. While in Hampton Roads on 16 July, Wright sent up her kite balloon for the last time before transferring it ashore to be based at the Hampton Roads Naval Air Station (NAS).
Later that summer, Wright visited New York City and then shifted to Newport, Rhode Island, arriving there on 7 August. The ship tended seaplanes in that vicinity, as they engaged in formation bombing exercises on stationary and towed targets. Wright subsequently operated off Solomons Island, Maryland where the seaplanes conducted battle practice and bombing rehearsals. From 15 to 24 September, she tended the 13 F5L seaplanes from Scouting Squadron 1 as they conducted bombing practice on towed targets in the Chesapeake Bay region. Later that autumn, Wright visited Baltimore, Maryland. Following her visit to that port, Wright cruised down the eastern seaboard for training operations out of Key West.
1923–1924 On 28 January 1923, Wright departed Florida waters in company with the converted minesweepers and and supported the 18 patrol planes of Scouting Squadron 1 in combined fleet tactics in waters ranging from Cuba and Honduras to the Panama Canal.
Between 18 and 22 February, Wrights planes participated in Fleet Problem I – a phase of which tested the defenses of the Panama Canal. Assigned to the "Blue" fleet, Wright and the two sister "Bird-boats" (Sandpiper and Teal) tended the planes from Scouting Squadron 1 that assisted that force as well as Army coastal and air units in defending the Panama Canal against air attack. The attacking "Black" fleet used two battleships as substitutes for "aircraft carriers" which it did not possess. On 21 February, one of those simulated flattops, , launched a single plane to scout ahead of the "Black" fleet, and, the following morning, sent a single plane aloft. That aircraft – which took off from Naranyas Cay – represented a carrier air group, and made her approach to the canal undetected. It dropped ten miniature bombs and theoretically "destroyed" the Gatun spillway.
After returning to Key West on 11 April, Wright spent the next two years off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, operating out of Hampton Roads and Newport in waters that ranged from the Virginia Capes to the Virgin Islands.
1925–1932 Wright ultimately departed Hampton Roads on 21 January 1925 as flagship for Captain Harry E. Yarnell, Commander, Air Squadrons, Scouting Fleet, bound for the Pacific Ocean. After transiting the Panama Canal, the tender reached Pearl Harbor on 25 February and operated in the Hawaiian area until 8 June when she proceeded back to the East Coast of the United States, reaching Norfolk on 18 July. Soon after Wright return to the Eastern Seaboard, work began to convert the ship to a "heavier-than-air aircraft tender" and, by 1 December, the work was complete.
Reclassified AV-1, the tender continued to support the seaplanes of the Scouting Fleet, operating out of Hampton Roads and Newport, to ports of Florida, Cuba, and Panama. As flagship for Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Scouting Force reclassified to Commander, Aircraft, Scouting Force in 1932, Wright usually spent four months of each winter in operations out of Guantanamo Bay in waters reaching from Panama to the Virgin Islands. For the remainder of the year, she worked in the Narragansett Bay and Chesapeake Bay areas, operating, as before, out of Hampton Roads and Newport with periodic cruises to the warmer climes of Florida or port visits to New York City. Wrights tending duties along the Eastern Seaboard and into the Caribbean continued until 3 February 1932. Varying her duties as tender were several assignments for special service.
Special services, 1927–1929 When the United States Coast Guard destroyer rammed and sank the submarine on the afternoon of 17 December 1927 off Provincetown, Massachusetts, Wright immediately loaded six salvage pontoons at the Norfolk Navy Yard and set out for the scene of the disaster. Although delayed by strong Atlantic gales, Wright reached Provincetown, via Boston, on the afternoon of 21 December. Meanwhile, on the day that Wright departed Norfolk, her commanding officer, specially detached, Captain Ernest J. King, took the train from Norfolk to New York and proceeded thence by plane to Provincetown. Arriving on board at 1315 on 18 December, Capt. King became senior aide to Rear Admiral Frank H. Brumby and took direct charge of the salvage operations. S-4 was finally brought to the surface on 17 March 1928 and subsequently taken to the Boston Navy Yard.
Meanwhile, Wright had been detached from the operation two days after Christmas 1927 and returned to Norfolk. The following year, the ship's routine was broken by transporting building materials to the hurricane-devastated island of St. Croix; and, in 1929, she carried Marines to Cuba when trouble threatened in Haiti.
1932–1935 Wright stood out of Hampton Roads on 5 January 1932 and supported air patrol squadron tactical evolutions ranging from Cuba and Jamaica to Coco Solo, Canal Zone. Arriving at the latter port on 1 February, the tender transited the isthmian waterway two days later, accompanying and tending the planes from Patrol Squadrons (VP) 2 and 5. After tactical evolutions off Acapulco and at Magdalena Bay, Mexico, Wright made port at NAS North Island, San Diego, on 20 February.
From the time of her arrival at NAS North Island, on 20 February 1932 until 10 September 1939, Wright made 14 extended cruises in support of naval seaplane squadrons. The first of those began when she departed San Diego on 1 May 1933 for an aviation transport run that included an inspection by Rear Admiral John Halligan, Jr., Commander, Aircraft Squadrons, Battle Force, of the Fleet Air Base (FAB) at Pearl Harbor. After returning to San Diego on 4 June, Wright operated along the West Coast, followed by a cruise to Panama and the Caribbean, between 31 August and 14 October, tending the planes from VP-2F, VP-5F, VP-10, and Utility Patrol Squadron 3. Wright sailed again for Hawaiian waters on 5 January 1934; and – in operations that took her from Hilo Bay, Hawaii, to Midway Island and French Frigate Shoals – tended 32 seaplanes. She then returned to San Diego on 30 May and departed again on 18 July for her first voyage to Alaskan waters. Steaming by way of Seattle, Washington, the tender visited Ketchikan and Juneau in early August before she tended two squadrons of seaplanes in waters near Seward and Sitka, Alaska. Proceeding via Vancouver, British Columbia, and San Francisco, Wright arrived back in San Diego on 6 September 1933 and remained in nearby waters for the rest of the year.
1935–1938 On 4 January 1935, Wright departed San Diego for tender operations off Panama; Cartagena, Colombia; Curaçao, Netherlands West Indies; Trinidad, British West Indies; and the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Upon completion of those exercises, she returned to San Diego on 1 March but soon sailed again for northern climes to operate between Dutch Harbor and Sitka from 29 April to 28 May before resuming her local tending operations along the coast of California. Wright departed San Diego on 10 October and took up a plane guard station off Las Tres Marias, Mexico, soon thereafter, covering one leg of the flight of the Consolidated XP3Y which took off from Cristobal Harbor, Canal Zone, on 14 October for a non-stop flight to Alameda, California. Commanded by Lt. Comdr. Knefler "Sock" McGinnis who was assisted by Lt. (jg.) J. K. Averill, Naval Aviation Pilot T. P. Wilkinson, and a crew of three – the plane passed abeam of Wright at 2210 on 14 October. That XP3Y reached Alameda in 24 hours and 45 minutes – thus establishing a new world's record for Class C seaplanes of 3,281.383 miles airline distance and 3,443.225 miles broken-line distance.