Pinetree Line Miscellaneous

USS Atka

Displacement 6,481t.(fl) 3,052 t.(lt)
Length 269'
Beam 63' 10"(max)
Draft 25' 9"
Speed 16 kts.
Complement 353
Armament one single 5"/38 dual purpose gun mount
Propulsion two electric motors driven by six Westinghouse DC generators, driven by six Fairbanks-Morse, 10-cyl 2-cycle diesel engines, twin shafts, 10,000shp

On July 20, 1942 a keel was laid in the shipyards of the Western Pipe and Iron Works of Los Angeles, California for another ice breaker of the Coast Guard's Eastwind class. On March 8, 1943 Mrs. Ona Jones christened the rapidly developing hull as the US Coast Guard cutter South Wind and on July 19, 1944 she was commissioned and proudly got underway as the ultimate in modern icebreaker design. Her period of service with the US Coast Guard was short-lived, however, as of March 25, 1945 less than one year later, she was transferred to the Foreign Representatives of the USSR as a loan in the Lend-Lease Program. The soviets renamed her the Admiral Makarov and she operated in their merchant marine for a period of four and one half years. Finally, on December 27, 1947, the American Naval authorities at Yokosuka, Japan were persented with the somewhat bedraggled Admiral Makarov. To meet the growing demand for US Naval shipping to supply our Artic bases the icebreaker was awarded to the Navy and accordingly a handful of officers and men reported aboard her at Yokosuka in the summer of 1950 to take her home.

On October 1, 1950 after two months of emergency repair work accomplished largely by Japanese workmen, she was commissioned in the US Navy as USS ATKA (AGB-3) and 3 days later she departed for the United States. ATKA is named after a small island in the Aleutian chain. The following summer, upon completion of an extensive overhaul and modernization in the Boston Naval Shipyard, she took her place as an active unit of the US Atlantic Fleet and has completed a number of summer and winter Arctic cruises.