USS Apache (SP-729)

For other ships with the same name, see USS Apache and USNS Apache.
Apache as a civilian motorboat in 1917, prior to her acquisition by the United States Navy.
History
United States
Name: USS Apache; later USS SP-729
Namesake: The Apache, the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans originally from the American Southwest (previous name retained)
Builder: Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, Bristol, Rhode Island
Completed: 12 June 1917
Acquired: 23 May 1917
Commissioned: 7 July 1917
Renamed: USS SP-729 by October 1918
Struck: 17 May 1919
Fate: Transferred to U.S. Coast Guard 22 November 1919
Notes: Built as civilian motorboat Herreshoff No. 311, later renamed Apache; commissioned in U.S. Coast Guard 25 August 1921; served in U.S. Coast Guard as USCGC Arrow and USCGC AB-2; transferred to United States Shipping Board for disposal 18 March 1925
General characteristics
Type: Patrol vessel
Displacement: 12 tons
Length: 62 ft 4 in (19.00 m)
Beam: 10 ft 11 in (3.33 m)
Draft: 2 ft 6 in (0.76 m) mean
Speed: 21 knots
Complement: 8
Armament: 1 × 1-pounder gun

The third USS Apache (SP-729), later USS SP-729, was an armed motorboat that served in the United States Navy as a patrol vessel from 1917 to 1919.

Construction, acquisition, and commissioning

Apache was built in 1917 by Herreshoff Manufacturing Company at Bristol, Rhode Island, as the civilian motorboat Herreshoff No. 311 for Robert F. Herrick of Boston, Massachusetts, who named her Apache and intended to offer her to the U.S. Navy for use as a patrol vessel during World War I. The U.S. Navy acquired her from Herrick on 23 May 1917 with a scheduled completion date by Herreshoff of 12 June 1917. She was commissioned as USS Apache (SP-729) at Boston on 7 July 1917.

Service history

World War I

USS Apache is at left in this row of section patrol boats at the Boston Navy Yard, Boston, Massachusetts, probably soon after her commissioning.

Apache served as a dispatch boat and local patrol boat at Boston, operating under the aegis of the 1st Naval District, through early October 1918, by which time her name had been changed to USS SP-729.

Due to an urgent need for craft such as SP-729 at Brest, France, an order dated 14 October 1918 went out from Washington, D.C., to Boston, directing the Commandant of the 1st Naval District to ready six section patrol boats -- USS Commodore (SP-1425), USS Cossack (SP-695), USS War Bug (SP-1795), USS Sea Hawk (SP-2365), USS Kangaroo (SP-1284), and SP-729—to be shipped to France as deck cargo along with spare parts to keep them operational. However, this proposed movement appears to have been cancelled, probably because of the armistice with Germany of 11 November 1918 that ended World War I and eliminated the need for more U.S. Navy patrol craft in Europe.

Postwar

Instead, SP-729 headed south via the inland waterway in December 1918, bound for Naval Air Station Pensacola at Pensacola, Florida, probably for duty as a crash boat.

Decommissioning and disposal

SP-729 was decommissioned at Key West, Florida, and stricken from the Navy List on 17 May 1919. She was turned over to the United States Coast Guard on 22 November 1919.

United States Coast Guard service

The Coast Guard renamed the boat Arrow on 16 December 1919 and she was commissioned into the Coast Guard as USCGC Arrow at Key West on 25 August 1921. Soon thereafter, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC Tallapoosa (WPG-52) towed Arrow to Tampa, Florida. While Arrow was serving at Tampa, she was reclassified as a harbor launch and renamed USCGC AB-2 on 6 November 1923. AB-2 later was found unfit for further Coast Guard service and was transferred to the United States Shipping Board on 18 March 1925 for disposal.

References

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