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USS Antares (AG-10/AKS-3) was an Antares-class cargo ship acquired by the U.S. Navy after World War I for use in transporting cargo. The cargo ship was named after Antares, the brightest star in constellation Scorpius. She earned two battle stars in service during World War II. Early career Antares was originally built under Shipping Board contract as the steel-hulled freighter Nedmac, and constructed by the American International Ship Building Corp.; acquired by the Navy on 14 November 1921 under the terms of Executive Order No. 3570 (29 October 1921) which authorized her transfer from the Shipping Board, she was renamed Antares and classified as a "miscellaneous auxiliary", AG-10. She was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 23 February 1922. After fitting out, Antares joined the Fleet Train, replacing the old auxiliary Nanshan. In March 1923, the ship became flagship for the Train, Scouting Fleet, a squadron of auxiliaries that supported those elements of the Fleet operating along the U.S. East Coast. Though her unit was later administratively incorporated into the Fleet Base Force as Squadron 1, Antares continued to wear the flag of the officer who commanded the auxiliaries on the Atlantic coast. Throughout that period, the ship also served as the fleet target repair and photographic ship, a vital auxiliary to the fleet's gunnery training in the 1920s. Employed at East Coast ports and operating areas, ranging from the Southern Drill Grounds to the Caribbean, Antares, like other naval vessels, occasionally gathered oceanographic data in the course of her voyages; she re-plotted landmarks for range finder and compass calibration charts, furnishing the Hydrographic Office with data needed to complete the calibration chart of Culebra, Puerto Rico, during the fiscal year 1924. During this time period, Antares participated in fleet concentrations and maneuvers in Cuban waters and in the Panama Canal Zone. Antares brought the planes of Utility Squadron 2 (VJ-2) back to Naval Air Station (NAS), Hampton Roads, following the winter maneuvers in 1925, and for the winter maneuvers of 1926, transported three assembled and one crated plane from VJ-2 to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, where they towed sleeve targets for the Scouting Fleet's cruisers. Antares then transported VJ-2 to Coco Solo, and from there back to Guantánamo Bay. She again served as an aviation transport that summer, returning to Cuban waters in company with the repair ship Vestal. From 1 January 1934, Antares served as a supply ship for the Special Service Squadron and, from January to March 1935, as a Mobile Base for the Fleet Marine Force. She then operated in the Caribbean until 1 June 1936 under orders of the Chief of Naval Operations. Placed in reduced commission as of 4 June, Antares served as receiving ship at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. On May 6, 1937, seven crew members from the USS Antares were dispatched to provide security at the Naval Air Station Lakehurst after the LZ 129 Hindenburg airship disaster. Placed in full commission on 17 May 1937 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Antares was assigned temporary duty with the Naval Transportation Service (a forerunner of the later Military Sea Transportation Service and the Military Sealift Command), and operated on both east and west coasts. She also operated with the Training Detachment, United States Fleet, and while assigned to this unit participated in Fleet Landing Exercise No. 4 in February 1938. In his report of the evolution, Rear Admiral Alfred Wilkinson Johnson—Commander, Training Detachment—considered that Antares—which had acted as a "utility auxiliary"—had proved "indispensable". He commended her performance of duty, which had been performed in spite of a "crammed schedule, allowing little or no time for upkeep." Antares was the only ship available that could handle the experimental tank lighter, artillery lighter, and other heavy marine equipment. "Her design," Johnson wrote, "except for speed, is ideal for the type of duty performed, and without her services, serious curtailment of the operations would have been necessary." The planned conversion of the ship to a general stores issue ship caused consternation at Headquarters, Marine Corps, General Thomas Holcomb pleading with the Chief of Naval Operations—Admiral William D. Leahy—to leave Antares in her current configuration, since she had proved so invaluable in the development of equipment and tactics in landing on a hostile shore. Ultimately, however, the conversion was carried out despite the marines' earnest entreaties. Resuming her work with the Base Force, United States Fleet, from mid-June 1938, Antares operated principally out of San Pedro, California, but later expanded her area of operations to the Hawaiian Islands and changed her base to Pearl Harbor. On 30 November 1940, the ship was reclassified to a general stores issue ship, AKS-3. During 1941, Antares operated between Pearl Harbor and the U.S. West Coast (San Pedro, Mare Island Navy Yard, and San Francisco, California), and Pacific islands such as Palmyra and Canton. World War II Antares was provided as transport to the Hawaiian Department, U.S. Army, during the urgent program to develop an air ferry route through the southern Pacific to the Philippines that would avoid the Japanese mandated islands of the central Pacific. On 3 November 1941 she left Oahu for Canton Island with three hundred and eight military (components of the 804th Engineer Battalion) and civilian personnel, supplies and towing a 500-ton barge with 804th Engineer Battalion construction equipment and two small barges that foundered en route. On 7 December 1941, Antares stood toward the entrance to Pearl Harbor at 06:30 with a 500 long tons (510 t) steel barge in tow, having arrived from Canton and Palmyra and expecting to transfer the barge to a tug and then proceed into Pearl. Not sighting the tug at the appointed time, Antares altered course, turning slowly to the east, when her watch suddenly spotted a suspicious object about 1,500 yd (1,400 m) on the auxiliary's starboard quarter. Antares notified the destroyer Ward, on patrol off the harbor entrance, and the latter altered course toward the object which proved to be a midget submarine. A PBY Catalina from Patrol Squadron 14 showed up almost simultaneously and dropped smoke floats in the vicinity; meanwhile, Ward went to general quarters and attacked, sinking the intruder. While the report of this incident off the harbor entrance was making its way up the chain of command with glacial slowness, Antares spotted the tug Keosanqua at 07:15. At 07:58, Antares spotted explosions in Pearl Harbor and Japanese planes; two minutes later an enemy aircraft strafed the ship, and soon thereafter, bomb and shell fragments (perhaps American "overs" or unexploded antiaircraft shells) hit the water nearby. As Antares' captain—Captain Lawrence C. Grannis—subsequently reported of events at that point, "As thi.... Discover the Zig Zag Claybourne popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Zig Zag Claybourne books.