USS Argonne (AP-4/AS-10/AG-31) was a Design 1024 cargo ship built under United States Shipping Board contract by the International Shipbuilding Corp., Hog Island, Pennsylvania, for the United States Department of War. Named Argonne for the U.S. Army's Meuse-Argonne campaign in World War I, she was completed in 1920, delivered to the War Department in December 1920, laid up in February 1921, and loaned to the Navy on 3 November 1921. Accepted preliminarily by the Navy on that date, she was commissioned as Argonne on 8 November 1921 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The ship was permanently transferred to the Navy 6 August 1924 by Executive Order.
Operational history Argonne was delivered to the War Department assigned to the U.S. Army Transport Service in the early part of 1921 and quickly laid up at Philadelphia in February. The ship was loaned to the Navy on 3 November 1921, commissioned on 8 November as USS Argonne. On 16 November 1921, the ship was classified as a transport, AP-4. Departing Philadelphia on 24 November 1921 with military and civilian passengers, as well as a senatorial party, Argonnes maiden voyage and shakedown took the ship to Port-au-Prince, Haiti; St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Ponce, Puerto Rico; and Santo Domingo City, Dominican Republic; before she put into Hampton Roads on 22 December. Subsequently, returning to Philadelphia for post-shakedown availability, Argonne proceeded to the Panama Canal via Charleston, South Carolina, and after a stop at Mare Island continued across the Pacific to Cavite, in the Philippines, on her first voyage to that part of the globe.
1922–1929 On 7 April 1922, Commander (later Fleet Admiral) Chester W. Nimitz, along with his wife and three children, embarked on board Argonne at Pearl Harbor for passage to the east coast of the United States. Nimitz was on his way to Newport, Rhode Island, to study at the Naval War College. The ship proceeded via Mare Island, where she underwent an overhaul period. Following that was a transit through the Panama Canal, Santo Domingo and Hampton Roads, bringing her voyage to a close on 21 June 1922.
Over the next two years, Argonne operated with the Naval Transportation Service on the through service between New York and Manila. Along with the transport , Argonne provided this important service to the fleet. During this time, she ranged from San Francisco to Guam and into the Yellow Sea, voyaging as far as Chefoo, China. Selected for conversion to a submarine tender and classified as AS-10 on 1 July 1924, Argonne was permanently transferred to Navy ownership under terms of the executive order dated 6 August 1924, and arrived at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 2 September 1924.
From September 1924 to March 1926, Argonne lay at Mare Island in reduced commission, undergoing her transformation from transport to tender. Major alternations to the ship included the installation of a turbo-generator plant, a compressed-air plant, a machine shop and a low-pressure distilling plant.
Placed in full commission on 25 March 1926, Argonne was assigned to the newly formed Submarine Division (SubDiv) 20, which consisted, at that time, of the "V-boats": V-1; V-2; and V-3. She sailed on 19 May to take up her duties. From 19 May to 5 June, Argonne operated from the west coast ports of San Francisco, San Pedro and San Diego, before she sailed to transit the Panama Canal for operations in the Atlantic.
Owing to disorders in Nicaragua, and fears that excesses of violence from the feuding factions might endanger American lives and property, expeditionary forces of marines were sent to reinforce the sailors and marines already landed from ships of the Special Service Squadron. Argonne participated in one of the early lifts, transporting the second Battalion, 5th Regiment – which had been encamped at Guantánamo Bay undergoing six months of training—from Guantanamo to Bluefields, Nicaragua, between 7 and 10 January 1927.
Maintaining the necessary neutral zones on the east coast for eight days, the battalion left one company at Rama before proceeding on, in Argonne, through the Panama Canal to the port of Corinto, on the west coast of Nicaragua. There, she disembarked the rest of the battalion on 24 January to maintain the neutral zones between that port and the capital city of Managua, before returning thence into the Caribbean to resume tending operations with SubDiv 20.
During March Argonne provided tender services to ships engaged in Fleet Problem VII, in a large-scale exercise that pitted the combined Battle Fleet, Base Force and fleet submarines against the combined Scouting Fleet, Control Force and Train Squadron 1. She rejoined the Special Service Squadron at the end of that month, however, to resume her transportation duties to Nicaraguan ports.
On 1 July 1927, Argonne became part of the Control Force, with which she carried out her previous duties with the Special Service Squadron, until being transferred with SubDiv 20 to the Battle Fleet, on 19 November. She operated with the fleet on the Pacific Coast, principally at San Diego, San Pedro, or Mare Island, until she sailed for Hawaiian waters on 18 April 1928, to take part in Fleet Problem VIII, an exercise that pitted light cruisers and a detachment of ships from Pearl Harbor ("Orange") against the Battle Fleet and the Train ("Blue"). Reaching Pearl Harbor on the 28th, she then based at Lahaina, and carried out tactical exercises with the fleet, ultimately returning to Mare Island for her annual overhaul on 29 June.
Resuming her active service with the Battle Fleet in the San Diego-San Pedro area from 18 August 1928, she operated there until 15 January 1929 when she sailed for Balboa, to take part in Fleet Problem IX, with all available units of the Battle Fleet and Train Squadron Two – these in the main opposed by the Scouting Fleet and the Control Force and the defense forces of the 15th Naval District and Army units. Arriving at Balboa on 29 January, the assembled fleet conducted its concentration based on Panama Bay before setting course back to San Diego on 11 March, and ultimately arriving back in their usual operating areas on the 22d.
Over the next eleven months, Argonne provided support services at San Diego with SubDivs 11 and 20, as the ships conducted speed and endurance tests, as well as torpedo and sound exercises. During this period, on 15 June 1929, Capt. Chester W. Nimitz, who had been a passenger on board the ship seven years before, became her commanding officer. His concurrent billet was that of Commander, SubDiv 20, his broad pennant in Argonne.
1930–1939 After overhaul at Mare Island, Argonne tended SubDivs 11 and 20 at San Diego from 11 December 1929 to 15 February 1930 before sailing for Panama on the latter date in company with Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Fleet, for the annual fleet concentration and the year's culmination of training, Fleet Problem X and XI. Each force was augmented to match them more evenly, pitting the Scouting Fleet against the Battle Fleet.
Following the exercises in the Caribbean, Argonne accompanied the fleet as it moved up to New York, arriving there on 7 May 1930. She operated with the fleet at New York, Newport, and Hampton Roads until 26 May, when she then set course for Panama and back to San Diego, arriving at the latter port on 19 June. She continued her tender operations from there until 1 December. During that time, she was transferred to the Control Force, Battle Fleet, on 6 November, on which date she was also transferred from SubDiv 20. Capt. Nimitz shifted his command pennant to on 5 November, that ship becoming flagship for SubDiv 20.
Argonne accompanied SubDivs 11 and 19 from San Diego on 1 December 1930, and engaged in maneuvers en route to Pearl Harbor, before she returned immediately to San Diego two days before Christmas with SubDivs 9 and 14. On 6 January 1931, Argonne became flagship for Commander, Fleet Base Force, and steamed from San Pedro that day, to take part in Fleet Problem XII – an evolution opposing the Battle Fleet to the Scouting Fleet, the latter augmented by the rigid airship . Returning to San Pedro on 4 April, she then conducted operations off the west coast, fleet and tactical maneuvers, until she departed San Pedro with the Battle Force on 23 January 1932 for Hawaiian waters.
At Pearl Harbor and Lahaina Roads, Argonne took part in exercises and provided tender support for the fleet as it carried out Fleet Problem XIII between the west coast of the United States and the Hawaiian Island; with the Battle Force once more set against the Scouting Force. Returning to San Pedro on 21 March 1932, she spent the next eleven months providing tender support services and operated with the fleet at San Pedro, San Francisco, and San Pablo, until 8 March 1933.
Argonne sailed from San Pedro on that date, one day after Comdr. Harry A. Badt relieved Comdr. C. R. Hyatt as Argonne's commanding officer and as commanding officer of the Aleutian Islands Surveying Expedition. Reaching the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 13 March, Argonne was drydocked, received stores and equipment, fuel oil and gasoline, and ultimately sailed for Dutch Harbor on 6 April. Proceeding thence to Bay of Islands, Adak, the ship surveyed those waters between 10 and 28 April before she proceeded back to Dutch Harbor with in tow. Argonne remained at Dutch Harbor from 1 to 18 May, contacting at that port for fuel oil and provisions, but also awaiting better weather in which to conduct her surveys. Finally departing Dutch Harbor on 18 May, the ship returned to the survey area – the waters off Adak, in the western Aleutians – on the 20th, remaining in the area for eight days before returning to Dutch Harbor for fuel oil and gasoline. She completed her survey work off Adak from 3 to 16 August before she sailed for Mare Island, and an overhaul, on 25 August.
Argonne, during her time in northern waters, also assisted the Bering Sea Aerological Expedition, with weather surveys and analyses necessary for radio stations of Washington and Alaska.
Remaining as flagship for the Base Force, Argonne provided tender services at San Pedro from 4 October 1933 to 9 April 1934; she then sailed south with the fleet, and supported its operations in Fleet Problem XV, the big war games which again pitted Battle Force against an augmented Scouting Force. In the course of her operations, the ship operated at Balboa, Colon, Culebra, Ponce, Gonaïves and Guantánamo Bay. She then steamed north with the fleet as it called at New York City, arriving on 2 June to be reviewed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She subsequently provided tender services out of New London and Newport before she proceeded to Port-au-Prince to participate in the withdrawal of the 1st Marine Brigade from Haiti on 15 August 1934. "Impressive ceremonies on shore amidst most friendly feelings displayed by the populace" accompanied the departure of the marines, whose duties as peacekeepers had been taken over by the fully Haitianized Garde d'Haiti. Other ships involved in the lift included , , and .
Following leave and liberty at Hampton Roads and at New Orleans, Argonne joined the fleet, transited the Panama Canal, and ultimately arrived at San Pedro on 9 November 1934. As Base Force flagship, she provided tender and repair services for minesweepers, tugs, and harbor craft, while maintaining the only major photographic laboratory for photo-triangulation of fleet gunnery exercises. Over the next seven years she operated principally out of San Pedro, but followed the fleet to the waters of Hawaii or Panama to carry out her vital support duty.