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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Lapwing (MSC[O] 48)
ex-AMS-48
ex-YMS-268



Call sign:
November - Foxtrot - Oscar - Mike
YMS-1 Class Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper:

  • The second Lapwing was laid down as YMS-268, 1 December 1942 by the Kruse and Banks Shipbuilding Co., North Bend, OR
  • Launched 15 April 1943
  • Completed 28 June 1943
  • Commissioned USS YMS-268, 31 July 1943
  • Decommissioned 2 August 1946
  • Placed in service as a Reserve Training Ship, 1 November 1946 at Chicago, IL
    Naval Vessel Register of 1 January 1949 lists plan for placing in service as a Naval Reserve training ship in the 9th Naval District (Great Lakes) as September 1947
  • Named Lapwing and reclassified as a Motor Minesweeper, AMS-48, 1 September 1947
  • Recommissioned 12 February 1951 at Orange, TX
  • Reclassified a Coastal Minesweeper (Old), MSC(O)-48, 7 February 1955
  • Decommissioned 17 November 1957 at New York
  • Struck from the Naval Register 1 November 1959
  • Sold in 1963 to Humphreys Railways, Inc. of Weems, VA for use as a fishing boat and renamed Weems
  • Sold to the Standard Products Co., Inc. of Kilmarnock, VA
  • Sold to Yale H. Iverson of Beaufort, NC and renamed Endeavor
  • Sold in the early 1990s to a religious order from Ohio, that had plans to use it as an outward bound training ship, but not know if this ever materialized
  • Out of documentation in 1991 and reported foundered.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 270 t.
  • Length 136'
  • Beam 24' 6"
  • Draft 8'
  • Speed 15 kts.
  • Complement 32
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, two 20mm mounts and two depth charge projectors
    All replaced by one 40mm mount and two .50 cal. machine guns
  • Propulsion: Two 880bhp General Motors 8-268A diesel engines, Snow and Knobstedt single reduction gear, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS YMS-268
    Lapwing 84k Namesake: Lapwing - Named for the crested plover (Vanellus vanellus) of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, noted for its slow, irregular, flapping flight and its shrill wailing cry Tommy Trampp
    Photo added 8 February 2020
    YMS-268 110k c. 1945
    San Francisco Bay, CA
    Courtesy of Donald McPherson, 1976
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 84973    		 Mike Green
    USS Lapwing (AMS 48)
    Lapwing/YMS-268 270k Mike Smolinski
    Peregrine 224k Right to left: Tutuila (ARG 4), Peregrine (AM 373), Fulmar (AMS 47), Hawk (AMS 17), Lapwing, and Cardinal (AMS 4).
    U.S. Navy photo from the August 1959 edition of All Hands magazine    		 Joe Radigan
    Commanding Officers
    01LTJG James D. Swartwout, USNR31 July 1943
    02LTJG C. P. Yale, USNR1945
    03LT Charles M. Kirkham, USNR12 February 1951 - December 1951
    04LTJG Cyril J. Hartman, Jr., USNRDecember 1951 - January 1952 (Acting)
    05LT D. C. Williamson, USNRJanuary 1952 - 1953
    ??LT James Robert Talbot, III, USN
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves and Joe Radigan
    View the Lapwing (MSC[O] 48)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    Naval Minewarfare Association
    Association of Minemen
    Back to the Main Photo Index Back To the Mine Warfare Ship Photo Index Back to the Auxiliary Motor Minesweeper (YMS) Photo Index Back to the Motor Minesweeper (AMS) Photo Index Back to the Coastal Minesweeper (MSC) Photo Index
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    This page created and maintained by Joseph M. Radigan (of blessed memory) & Michael Mohl
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