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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Mallard (ASR 4)



Call sign:
Nan - Item - King - Baker

ex-AM-44
ex-Minesweeper No. 44



Call sign (1919):
George - Boy - Dog - King
Lapwing Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 25 May 1918 by the Staten Island Shipbuilding Co., Staten Island, NY
  • Launched 17 December 1918
  • Commissioned USS Mallard, Minesweeper No. 44, 25 June 1919
  • Designated AM-44, 17 July 1920
  • Reclassified as a Submarine Rescue Ship, ASR-4, 12 September 1929
  • Decommissioned 10 December 1946 and stripped at the New York Navy Yard
  • Sunk as a target 22 May 1947 by USS Piper (SS 409).

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 1,400 t.
  • Length 187' 10"
  • Beam 36' 8"
  • Draft 13' 2"
  • Speed 14 kts.
  • Complement 91
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose mount
  • Propulsion: Two 200psi Babcock and Wilcox saturated steam boilers, one Harlan and Hollingsworth Corp. 1,400shp triple expansion vertical engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS Mallard (Minesweeper No. 44)
    Mallard 67k Namesake: Mallard - The common wild duck, Anas platyrhynches, of either sex, of the Northern Hemisphere. The domestic ducks are descended from it Tommy Trampp
    Photo added 11 March 2020
    Mallard 225k Photo from "Sweeping the North Sea Mine Barrage" by the U.S. Navy North Sea Minesweeping Detachment Joe Radigan
    SC-37 & 206 67k SC-37 shown after damaged by a mine explosion on 5 July 1919 while helping clear the North Sea mine barrage. SC-206 and an unidentified minesweeper [possibly Mallard, Minesweeper No. 44] are standing by. She was quickly repaired and was again damaged on 4 August 1919
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 42580    		 Mike Green
    USS Mallard (AM 44)
    Mallard 84k c. 1920 Dictionary of American Fighting Ships
    Mallard 80k Photo from the September 1920 edition of Our Navy magazine Joe Radigan
    Mallard 237k Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones collection Mike Mohl
    Mallard 352k 16 December 1928
    Boston Navy Yard
    Officers look over the newly installed air manifolds that will be used in salvage operations
    Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones collection    		 Boston Public Library
    Mallard 141k c. 1929
    Photos taken during the Navy's Momsen Lung test off Key West, FL
    The Heritage House Collection, donated by the Campbell, Poirier and Pound families
    Photos courtesy of Florida Keys Public Libraries    		 Robert Hurst
    Mallard 87k c. 1929
    Photos taken during the Navy's Momsen Lung test off Key West, FL. Submarine alongside Mallard is believed to be the test submarine S-4
    The Heritage House Collection, donated by the Campbell, Poirier and Pound families
    Photos courtesy of Florida Keys Public Libraries
    USS Mallard (ASR 4)
    Mallard 117k Probably photographed early in World War II Original photo: Donald Taber via the National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors
    Replacement photo: Mike Green
    Mallard 47k Probably photographed early in World War II Donald Taber via the National Association of Fleet Tug Sailors
    Mallard 59k
    Mallard 67k
    Mallard 134k 5 April 1941
    Cristobal, Panama Canal Zone
    Photo caption: "The 23,225-ton Italian liner Comte Biancamano [later Hermitage (AP 54)], as she was taken over by U.S. Naval units here March 30, by order of the U.S. Government. Alongside is the USS Mallard from which a boarding party went on the liner, one of the twenty-eight Italian ships seized in U.S. Territorial waters. Five hundred members of the crew are to be transferred to New York, it was learned yesterday."
    Wide World photo    		 Tommy Trampp
    Commanding Officers
    01LTJG Harry Reave Brayton, USN25 June 1919
    02LT Robert Chester O'Brien, USNRF - Awarded the Navy Cross (1920)1919
    03LT Clyde Charlie Laws, USN3 August 1920
    04LT Louis Herman Raeder, USN1 January 1923
    05LT Christopher Murray, USN13 May 1923
    06LT Robert Rohange, USN - Awarded the Navy Cross (1919)
    Retired as Lieutenant    		31 December 1925
    07LT John Brady Hupp, USN - Awarded the Navy Cross (1919)8 September 1928 - 1930
    08LT Arthur Wrightson, USN1 February 1930
    09LT Charles Fearns Macklin, Jr., USN30 June 1932
    10LT Robley Westland Clark, USN17 May 1933
    11LT Edward Loring Dix Roach, III, USN1 May 1936
    12CDR William Herman Brockman, Jr., USN - Retired as Rear AdmiralJune 1938 - 3 July 1939
    13LCDR Frederick Williams Laing, USN3 July 1939 - August 1941
    14LCDR Frederick George Garvie Molumphy, USNAugust 1941 - 22 September 1942
    15LT Malcolm Davis Balbirnie, USN22 September 1942 - 30 April 1943
    16LT Monroe Vaughn Evans, USN30 April 1943 - July 1944
    17LT Berley L. Maddox, USNJuly 1944 - January 1946
    18LCDR Donald Glenn Horsman, USNJanuary 1946 - 10 December 1946
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves and Joe Radigan
    View the Mallard (AM 44)
    DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway website
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    This page created and maintained by Joseph M. Radigan (of blessed memory) & Michael Mohl
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