USNS Pvt Jose F Valdez

USNS "Pvt Jose F. Valdez" (T-AG-169) , named after World War II Medal of Honor recipient PFC Jose F. Valdez, was a technical research ship in operation during the 1960s. The "Galloping Ghost of the Ivory Coast" or “Grey Ghost of the African Coast”, as she was affectionately called by her crew, was deployed around Africa from 1961 until 1969.

Early History

The "Pvt. Jose F. Valdez", originally "Joe P. Martinez" (MC hull 2245), was laid down by Walter Butler Shipbuilders Inc., Duluth, Minnesota, 22 April 1944; launched as Round Splice, 27 October 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Guy R. Porter; transferred to the American Shipbuilding Co., Chicago, Illinois, for completion, 15 December 1944; and delivered to the U.S. Army for operation 16 February 1945.

Round Splice, owned by the Maritime Commission and operated by the Army Transportation Service during and after World War II, was renamed "Private Jose F. Valdez" in 1947. On 2 September 1950 she was acquired by the Navy, designated T-APC-119, and assigned to MSTS. Manned by a civil service crew she operated in the Gulf and Caribbean areas until August 1951. Between then and December she cruised the Mediterranean and in January 1952 began runs to Newfoundland and Greenland which continued until she was ordered inactivated in late 1959. On 22 December she arrived in the James River National Defense Reserve Fleet berthing area and was transferred to the custody of the Maritime Administration.

Operation of the Valdez as a Technical Research Ship

"Private Jose F. Valdez" was reacquired by the Navy in August 1961. Converted to a technical research ship and reassigned to MSTS, she departed Brooklyn, her homeport, in November 1961 on the first of her extended cruises to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

The USNS designation indicates that the ship was manned by civilians. A crew of approximately 55 civilians operated the ship while a detachment of approximately 100 Navy personnel carried out the research operations. The Navy detachment typically included three officers; almost all enlisted men were Communications Technicians, a rating that has been renamed Cryptologic Technician.

Overview of the Technical Research Fleet

The "Valdez" was one of eleven ships in the Technical Research Fleet operated from 1961-1969. All of these ships were built during World War II. The eight "Liberty", "Victory", and coastal cargo/transport ships were built for the U.S. Maritime Commission, and were operated by U.S. steamship companies for the War Shipping Administration (WSA) during and/or after the war except for one which was operated by the U.S. Army. The four others were built for the Army (3) and Navy (l). All were converted after the war by the Navy which operated them as technical research ships for the National Security Agency/Naval Security Group, nine as USS "in commission" with Navy crews and three as USNS "in service" with civil service crews and Navy detachments.

An advantage of the USNS designation is that the ship was not required to return to an American port on a regular basis. Thus the first deployment of the "Valdez" started in 1961 and she did not return to the USA until 1967.

The two most famous members of this small fleet were the USS "Liberty" (AGTR-5) and the USS "Pueblo" (AGER-2). The "Liberty" was attacked by the Israeli Defense Force on June 8 1967 resulting in 34 killed and 173 wounded; see USS "Liberty" Incident. The "Pueblo" was captured by North Korea in January 1968 resulting in the crew being held captive until December 1968.

The other ships of this small fleet are not as well known but carried out their duties in remote parts of the world with diligence. Most of the ships were very lightly armed (the "Liberty" had four M2 .50-caliber machine guns) or not armed at all. The entire fleet was laid up by 1970 after serving the country well during a critical period of the cold war.

"Valdez" Operation in African Waters

Since the “Happy Jose” did not regularly return to the USA, the crew was rotated by flying them to a major port city in Africa, such as Cape Town. This occurred on an annual basis. The old crew would be flown back to the USA.

The "Valdez" was typically at sea for about 30 days and then spent four or five days in port. Some of the sub-Saharan ports of call, from West to East, were Dakar, Senegal; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Monrovia, Liberia; Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Lagos, Nigeria; Brazzaville, Republic of Congo; Luanda, Angola; Walvis Bay, Southwest Africa (now named Namibia); Cape Town, South Africa; Port Elizabeth, South Africa; Durban, South Africa; Lourenço Marques (now named Maputo), Mozambique; and Mombasa, Kenya.

Given these ports of call, the "Valdez" frequently crossed the equator. The Navy crewmen who were crossing the equator for the first time were transformed from Pollywogs to Shellbacks in the traditional ceremony for crossing the equator; see Line-crossing ceremony. A good time was had by all, as evidenced by the pictures on Carlton Cox’s web site (see link below).

When in port the crew was able to see some of the majestic beauty of Africa. When in Mombasa, Kenya, it was a short way on a camera safari to see Tsavo National Park and even travel to the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. If the ship pulled into Lourenço Marques (now named Maputo), it was a short distance to Kruger National Park in South Africa. And then there is the natural beauty of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.

A Brush with Fate

In May 1967 tensions were rising in the Middle East between Israel and her Arab neighbors; this resulted in the six-day war in June 1967. The NSA decided to deploy a SIGINT collection ship to the area to monitor the situation. Most of the technical research ships were too far away: the USS Oxford and USS Jamestown were in Southeast Asia, the USS Georgetown and USS Belmont were in South America, and the USNS Muller was off Cuba.

Choice of a ship for the operation narrowed between the USNS Valdez, then headed from the eastern Mediterranean to Gibraltar, and the USS. Liberty in port at Abidjan, Ivory Coast. NSA selected the Liberty because she had superior cruising speed (18 knots vs. 8 knots for Valdez), because her VHF/UHF multichannel collection capability was better, and because she was, unlike the Valdez, at the beginning of a deployment. On 23 May 1967 the Liberty was diverted for duty in the eastern Mediterranean. The Valdez docked at Rota, Spain on May 25 leaving her collection of information for the Liberty to pick up and then continued westward across the Atlantic Ocean to end her long deployment. She arrived in Bayonne, New Jersey in June 1967. The Liberty stopped at Rota on June 1 and departed the next day for the eastern Mediterranean. See USS Liberty Incident to read about the consequences of that fateful voyage.

The Final Deployments

After repair and overhaul, the Valdez departed for her second extended tour in the African region on September 18 1967. She returned to the USA unexpectedly early in September 1968 for installation of TRSSCOMM (Technical Research Ship Special COMMunications), a system that could relay messages directly to Washington by bouncing a microwave signal off the moon. This was not a new system; it had already been used on the USS "Liberty" and the USS Oxford. This system consisted of a sixteen foot, dish shaped antenna mounted on a movable platform and capable of bouncing a 10,000 watt microwave signal off a particular spot on the moon and down either to the receiving station at Cheltenham, Maryland, or to one of the other Navy SIGINT ships. The TRSSCOMM had the advantage of being able to transmit large quantities of intelligence information very rapidly without giving away the ship's location to hostile direction finding equipment or interfering with incoming signals. But its major disadvantage is that it could only work if the moon was visible and the stabilization system worked properly.

The third extended deployment commenced on 22 January 1969 when the Valdez transited to Africa via Recife, Brazil. The Valdez was ordered home later that year to prematurely end her final deployment. All the vessels in the Technical Research fleet were inactive by 1970.

The Final Fate of the Valdez

The Maritime Administration assumed custody of the Valdez on November 7 1969. She was struck from the Naval Register, 15 August 1976 and transferred for disposal. She sold on 27 July 1977 and scrapped by Consolidated -Andy Inc., Brownsville, Texas later that year.

Gallery

External links

* [http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/49169.htm navsource.org: T-AG-169 "Pvt Jose F Valdez"]
* [http://usnsjosefvaldeztag169.741.com/ USNS "Pvt. Jose F. Valdez" web site by Carlton Cox]
* [http://www.navycthistory.com/ Web site of the Worldwide CT Community]
* [http://coldwar-c4i.net/SpecialProjectFleet/history.html A complete listing of the Technical Research Ships]