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Homeports of USS Avenger

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USS Avenger (MCM 1)

USS AVENGER was the lead ship of the AVENGER - class of mine countermeasures ships. Decommissioned on September 30, 2014, the AVENGER was sold for scrapping to Marine Group Boat Works of San Diego, Calif., on November 3, 2014.

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Crew List:

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

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• Click here to see which USS AVENGER memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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USS AVENGER Cruise Books:

• European Cruise Book 1997

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Some Details:

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History of USS AVENGER:

USS AVENGER's keel was laid down on May 2, 1983 by Peterson Shipbuilders, Sturgeon Bay, Wis. After launching on June 15, 1985 the commissioning ceremony took place on September 12, 1987.

Following Iraq's invasion in Kuwait on August 2, 1990, a US-led coalition began Operation Desert Shield - the build-up of military forces in the Gulf area aimed to withdraw the enemy forces from Kuwait. The minesweepers USS IMPERVIOUS (MSO 449), USS ADROIT (MSO 509), USS LEADER (MSO 490), and the MCM ship USS AVENGER arrived in the theater on September 30, 1990, on the Dutch heavy-lift ship SUPER SERVANT III.

While sweeping toward the shore of Faylaka Island on February 17, 1991, the MCM force (including USS AVENGER) was targeted by Iraqi Silkworm antiship missile fire control radars in Kuwait. The ships moved out of the missile's range while Coalition forces located and attacked the radar site. With the Silkworm missile threat diminished, the MCM forces began to move back to the previous minesweeping areas at 0240 on February 18. At 0435, after operating for 11 hours in an undetected Iraqi minefield, USS TRIPOLI (LPH 10) hit a moored contact mine in 30 meters of water. The explosion ripped a 16 foot by 20 foot hole below the water line. As USS AVENGER and USS LEADER attempted to assist the damaged warship, USS PRINCETON (CG 59), while unknowingly heading along a line of Manta mines, continued to provide air defense for the MCM Group. At 0715, USS PRINCETON actuated a Manta mine in 16 meters of water. A sympathetic actuation of another mine about 350 yards from the cruiser occurred about three seconds later.

These mine blasts caused substantial damage to USS PRINCETON, including a cracked superstructure, severe deck buckling, and a damaged propeller shaft and rudder. As damage control teams overcame fires and flooding aboard USS TRIPOLI and USS PRINCETON, the minesweepers USS IMPERVIOUS, USS LEADER, and USS AVENGER searched for additional mines in the area. The minesweeper USS ADROIT led the salvage ship USS BEAUFORT (ATS 2) toward USS PRINCETON; USS BEAUFORT then towed the damaged warship to safety.

During the minesweeping in the Persian Gulf, USS AVENGER used the AN/SQQ-32 MCM sonar, a sophisticated mine-hunting sonar, to detect moored and bottom mines in shallow or deep waters. USS AVENGER then used the AN/SLQ-48 mine neutralization system (MNS) to locate, examine, and destroy the detected mines. The MNS consists of a remotely piloted submersible vehicle equipped with sonar and two television cameras for locating mines, explosives for neutralizing mines, and cable cutters for cutting the mooring so the mine floats to the surface for destruction. The other US minesweepers used the AN/SQQ-14 MCM sonar to detect bottom and moored mines and mechanical minesweeping gear to cut mine cables.

Beginning in March 1991, USS AVENGER was still operating in the northern Arabian Gulf, part of the post-ceasefire effort to survey, mark, and neutralize Iraqi minefields laid during the Kuwait crisis. The ship's tasks in this phase were the practical continuation of the mine countermeasures campaign that had begun before the ceasefire and now shifted to route clearance for returning shipping and coalition logistics. In those waters she worked within a combined mine-warfare mosaic that included U.S. ocean minesweepers such as USS IMPERVIOUS, USS LEADER, and USS ADROIT, as well as allied units, while U.S. commanders standardized procedures and naming conventions for the evolving Gulf mine clearance ("Desert Sweep", "Candid Hammer", and other labels appeared in use).

With those tasks winding down, AVENGER turned for home at the start of the summer. On June 2, 1991, she transited the Strait of Hormuz to begin a roughly 10,000-mile, seven-week return to the U.S. East Coast and her homeport at Charleston, South Carolina, closing out an extended Persian Gulf period that had included both combat and immediate post-war clearance work. After arrival in late July 1991, she shifted into stateside routines - maintenance in Charleston, a run to Annapolis and back, and local evolutions - resetting the ship and crew after the Gulf deployment.

In 1992, AVENGER's schedule centered on upkeep and readiness. The ship entered a Drydocking Phased Maintenance Availability at Detyens Shipyards in the Charleston area - work that focused on hull, propulsion, and mine-warfare system reliability - then returned to type training and Atlantic Fleet operations from Charleston. Those yard and training cycles were the bridge from wartime tempo to the sustained peacetime regimen the class would follow for much of the decade.

A larger change came with the Navy's consolidation of its mine-warfare force on the Gulf of Mexico. On July 22, 1993, AVENGER departed Charleston, refueled at Key West on July 25, and on July 30, 1993, arrived at her new homeport, Naval Station Ingleside, Texas - then being built out specifically to host the AVENGER-class MCMs, the newer OSPREY-class MHCs, and supporting schoolhouses. The move reflected both post-Cold War basing shifts and the Navy's intent to mass mine-warfare expertise in one place.

From late 1993 onward, AVENGER alternated Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic workups with deployments to the Eastern Atlantic. The 1995 cycle shows how those looked in detail: after underway periods and inspections, AVENGER completed an "East Coast Cruise" with port calls at Charleston, Mayport, Little Creek, New York City, Newport, and Boston, returned on July 23, 1995, and immediately commenced a Restricted Availability at Braswell Shipyards - typical mid-deployment maintenance to keep the wooden-hulled MCMs and their high-endurance minehunting systems at peak performance.

By 1997, the ship's pattern had expanded into the Mediterranean, where NATO regularly staged mine-warfare training in complex littorals. AVENGER's 1997 command history records a busy spring of underway periods and port stops (including Key West and Charleston) followed by the Mediterranean phase anchored by the multinational mine-countermeasures exercise "ALCUDRA 97", during which AVENGER's crew recovered more drill mines than any other U.S. asset - an indication of both proficiency with the AN/SQQ-32 sonar and the SLQ-48 mine neutralization vehicle and the value of repeated NATO serials. In early July, she made a port visit to Port-Vendres, France (July 2-6), paused at Naval Station Rota, Spain (July 8), and returned to Ingleside on July 24, 1997, having completed the European cruise with a full slate of MCM tasking and theater engagement.

Sustained operations demanded equally sustained maintenance. On January 12, 1998, AVENGER entered Southwest Marine at Ingleside for a three-month Phased Maintenance Availability - work that typically included corrosion control, shafting and controllable-pitch propeller checks, thruster and station-keeping system work, and refurbishment of mine-warfare electronics and cabling - after which she resumed local operations and deployment preparations.

In 1999, the ship again crossed the Atlantic for Sixth Fleet waters and a Mediterranean deployment. Her command reporting for that year notes, among other serials, a port visit to Rota, Spain in company with fellow AVENGER-class ship USS CHAMPION (MCM 4), a good snapshot of how U.S. MCMs routinely operated in small groups alongside allied minehunters and frequently under NATO tasking. She closed the year back on the Gulf Coast, cycling through inspections and schools in preparation for a shift in operating focus to the Pacific.

In 2001, AVENGER deployed to the Eastern Pacific via the Panama Canal to conduct joint and combined mine-warfare training with West Coast commands and partners and to support Fleet exercises that emphasized shallow-water mine countermeasures in approach lanes and ports. A Navy photo captures the ship passing under the Coronado Bay Bridge during a San Diego port period on April 23, 2001. Late that year, she supported testing of a jam-resistant precision navigation system - important for the exacting station-keeping minehunting requires - before returning to Gulf Coast routines.

After the 9/11 attacks, mine warfare remained a foundational enabler of amphibious and carrier operations, and AVENGER's early-2000s schedule reflected that emphasis: Gulf of Mexico ranges, Atlantic workups, and periodic detachments to the Pacific. She joined the 2004 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise in Hawaii, contributing to the multination undersea-warfare and littoral-operations scenarios that year before returning to Ingleside in October 2004. Those serials knit AVENGER's minehunting and mine-neutralization skills into larger strike-group and expeditionary playbooks, a core objective of RIMPAC's mine-warfare tracks.

By mid-decade, the ship continued to appear wherever the Fleet needed certified MCM capacity. In the summer campaign of RIMPAC 2006 - an iteration heavy on combined undersea warfare and amphibious integration - AVENGER took part in the mine-warfare contribution to the world's largest naval exercise, operating from Hawaiian waters as multinational forces rehearsed sea-line defense, port breakout, and amphibious approach clearance while air, surface, and submarine units stressed command-and-control and interoperability.

From 2006, USS AVENGER was still based with the Navy's dedicated mine-warfare force at Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, cycling through Gulf of Mexico ranges, inspections, and maintenance as the service refined post–9/11 minehunting tactics and reliability upgrades for the AVENGER-class. Ingleside remained the homeport nucleus for U.S. Atlantic mine warfare through the late 2000s, and AVENGER's routine underway periods and availabilities there set the conditions for her late-decade modernization and a subsequent Pacific shift.

Modernization peaked in the summer of 2008, when AVENGER completed the most significant update of her service life. The package focused on mine-warfare sensors and ship systems - most notably improvements associated with the AN/SQQ-32 minehunting sonar suite and shipboard reliability items such as power generation - so the ship could better find, classify, and prosecute bottom and moored mines in cluttered, shallow waters. The class-wide MCM modernization effort that followed continued to emphasize upgraded SQQ-32(V)4 capabilities and supporting combat-systems refreshes to sustain minehunting performance.

In 2009, AVENGER shifted west. After a brief stop in San Diego connected with her reassignment to the Pacific Fleet, the ship was heavy-lifted to Japan to become part of the Forward-Deployed Naval Forces in Seventh Fleet. On July 10, 2009, a Navy image captured AVENGER exiting the submerged deck of the MSC-contracted heavy-lift ship OCEAN FORCE during a float-on/float-off offload in Sasebo, formally placing her in theater. Companion imagery that summer documented sister ship USS DEFENDER (MCM 2) conducting a similar evolution, with both ships earmarked for extended Western Pacific duty. From that point, AVENGER operated from Sasebo with Mine Countermeasures Squadron SEVEN (MCMRON 7), supporting allied training and regional contingency plans.

Forward deployment quickly produced a steady rhythm of local operations and port periods. A Navy photo dated June 9, 2010, shows AVENGER getting underway from U.S. Fleet Activities Sasebo, part of her first full year of Seventh Fleet operations. That cycle included unit-level training and mine neutralization drills that kept crews proficient with the SLQ-48 mine neutralization vehicle and the ship's variable-depth sonar in the confined waters common to Northeast and Southeast Asia.

In early 2011, the ship shifted north for combined training on the Korean Peninsula. During Exercise FOAL EAGLE, AVENGER and USS GUARDIAN (MCM 5) conducted minehunting operations off the Republic of Korea on March 6-9, 2011, rehearsing the clearance of approach lanes and holding areas that would be essential in a crisis or contingency. U.S. Navy and U.S. Pacific Fleet reporting from the period names both AVENGER and GUARDIAN as the MCM surface participants for the year's evolution. Imagery and press coverage further show AVENGER deploying minesweeping equipment during the serials. After completing FOAL EAGLE, AVENGER returned to Sasebo on March 9, 2011.

The ship then moved south into the Strait of Malacca and adjacent waters during May 2011, a critical stretch of the global sea-lane network where mine countermeasures training emphasizes precision navigation amid heavy merchant traffic. On May 13, 2011, AVENGER was photographed at Changi, Singapore. On May 16, 2011, she arrived in Lumut, Malaysia for a port visit and bilateral engagement. A sequence of DVIDS images from May 18-20, 2011, shows Malaysian naval officers embarked for shipboard exchanges and AVENGER's crew lowering and recovering the mine neutralization vehicle while conducting drills at sea in the Strait of Malacca. The visit and underway period fit squarely within the region's recurring CARAT-style engagements, designed to build practical mine-warfare interoperability.

AVENGER remained forward through 2012-2013, maintaining readiness and working the same set of chokepoints and approaches with regional partners. A July 25, 2012, broadcast package shows the ship conducting sea-and-anchor detail during an underway, one of the routine evolutions bracketing deployments and port periods. In early 2013, MCMRON 7 absorbed force changes in Japan following the grounding and loss of GUARDIAN that January. A heavy-lift transport delivered USS WARRIOR (MCM 10) to Sasebo on March 4, 2013, to replace GUARDIAN, while AVENGER continued her patrol and exercise cycle from the forward base.

Relief and turnover were formally announced in 2014. On February 7, 2014, the Navy stated that USS PIONEER (MCM 9) and USS CHIEF (MCM 14) would report to Sasebo in May to replace AVENGER and DEFENDER as forward-deployed MCMs. A March 7, 2014, photo shows CHIEF and PIONEER arriving at Sasebo aboard an Eide Marine Services heavy-lift ship to conduct the planned hull swaps. With those reliefs in place, AVENGER shifted back to the United States for retirement proceedings.

The ship's service closed at San Diego. On September 30, 2014, AVENGER was decommissioned at Naval Base San Diego, concluding more than twenty-seven years in commission. Navy releases and archival sites record the ceremony and the striking of the ship the same day, with subsequent disposition for scrapping in November 2014. The arc from 2006 to September 30, 2014 thus runs from stateside training and modernization, through forward deployment to Japan and repeated allied exercises - from FOAL EAGLE off Korea to drills in the Strait of Malacca and port engagements in Singapore and Malaysia - and ends with an orderly turnover to newer sister ships before inactivation.

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Homeports of USS AVENGER:

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