USS Hornbill (AMc-13)

USS Hornbill (AMc-13) was a coastal minesweeper of the United States Navy, named after the hornbill.

For other ships with the same name, see USS Hornbill.
History
Name: USS Hornbill
Builder: Martinolich Repair Basin, Tacoma, Washington
Launched: 1938, as J. A. Martinolich
Commissioned: 7 December 1940
Stricken: 24 July 1942
Fate: Sank after collision, 30 June 1942
General characteristics
Type: Coastal minesweeper
Displacement: 195 long tons (198 t)
Length: 83 ft 2 in (25.35 m)
Beam: 20 ft 1 in (6.12 m)
Draft: 5 ft (1.5 m)
Depth of hold: 10 ft (3.0 m)
Speed: 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement: 11
Armament: 1 × .30 cal (7.62 mm) machine gun

The ship was launched as the fishing boat J. A. Martinolich in 1938 by the Martinolich Repair Basin, Tacoma, Washington. She was taken over by the Navy, and commissioned on 7 December 1940.

West Coast assignment

Hornbill was assigned to the mine force in the 12th Naval District. She engaged in coastal sweeping of the main ship channel for magnetic and acoustic type mines. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, her service became more valuable with the Japanese threat to U.S. West Coast sea traffic.

Collision and sinking

On the morning of 30 June 1942 Esther Johnson, a 208 ft 4 in (63.50 m), 1,104 GRT[1] steam lumber schooner on passage from Coos Bay, Oregon, collided with Hornbill in San Francisco Bay. Approximately thirty minutes after the collision the minesweeper sank. The crew was saved and a small amount of equipment was safely removed to the lumber schooner. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 24 July 1942.

References
  1. Lloyds (1943). "Lloyd's Register" (PDF). Lloyd's Register (through PlimsollShipData). Retrieved 24 August 2014.

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