Function
''Neptune''s assignments were typically to transport, deploy, retrieve and repair submarine cables, tow cable plowLarge devices used to bury cable in coastal areas to protect from damage from trawls and other hazards. and acoustic projectors, and conduct acoustic, hydrographic, and bathymetric surveys. Civilian cable engineers and specialist were involved during cable or surveying operations in addition to a Navy crew of nine officers and 142 enlisted personnel.SOSUS and both operations and actual linkage of Project Caesar to SOSUS was at the time classified and tightly controlled. The system was covered as "oceanographic research" and the cable operations were not associated with undersea surveillance systems. Thus any public information, such as the referenced ''All Hands'' article, did not describe the true nature of the operations. The ''All Hands'' article "Underseas Cable Layer" emphasizes the cover story with the purpose being to connect remote ocean observation centers with shore stations. In addition to cable operations and surveys for Project Caesar the ship supported experimental efforts and other projects.Career
After completion for the US Army Signal Corps in February 1946, ''Neptune'' was handed to the United States Maritime Administration, Maritime Commission and placed in the James River reserve fleet on 2 March 1946. In 1952 ''Neptune'' was assigned to Project Caesar, the unclassified name for the installation phase of SOSUS. The system's mission was declassified in 1991. On 17 February 1953 the ship was named ''Neptune'' and withdrawn from the reserve fleet. The ship then went to the Bethlehem Shipbuilding, Bethlehem Steel Co. in Baltimore, Maryland for a number of modifications: e.g., electric cable machinery (in place of steam), precision navigation instrumentation, and a helicopter platform over the fantail. Cable drums in diameter and bow sheaves spanning were among the more visible modifications. On 1 June 1953 the ship was ship commissioning, commissioned USS ''Neptune'' (ARC-2). The ship's operations were classified so few specific ones are public. One was the 1962 connection of the array once terminating at Naval Facility Cape May to Fort Miles#Cold War, Naval Facility Lewes necessitated by destruction of the Cape May shore station in the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, "Ash Wednesday" Storm.To preserve secrecy the shore terminals operated under the cover of "oceanographic research" and were designated by the generic term "Naval Facility" until most had been decommissioned in system consolidation and before declassification. See SOSUS. From December 1965 through March 1966 ''Neptune'' was overhauled in Boston. In 1973, ''Neptune'' transferred to the Military Sealift Command (MSC), was re-designated T-ARC-2, and continued operations with an MSC civil service crew. Only two of the four cable ships available for Project Caesar had been designed and built as cable ships, the others being conversions and lacking some critical features needed for cable operations. The larger and were not suitable for modernization while ''Albert J. Myer'' and ''Neptune'' had cable ship features, including deeper draft than the larger ships, that made them suitable candidates for modernization. In hearings for the 1980 appropriations the Navy requested an increase of $9.6 million over an original estimate of $14.5 million in ''Neptune'' conversion budget for a total of $24.1 million. The revised estimate was based on actual ''Myer'' conversion costs. In particular the Navy was questioned about conversion of merchant type hulls to cable ships and answered that conversion would be more expensive. Further, charter of commercial cable ships was done when needed, but expensive and those ships were not always available when required. The AT&T was used on occasion to lay trunk cable at a daily cost of $30,000 vice ''Neptune's'' $19,200. Scheduled Project Caesar work required a minimum of three Navy cable ships. ''Neptune'' was extensively modernized in 1982 by General Dynamics Corporation in Quincy, Massachusetts.SeFootnotes
References
* * ''The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet'', Norman Polmar, Naval Institute Press, 13th edition, 1984. * ''OPNAV NOTICE 1650'', Master List of Unit Awards and Campaign Medals, 9 March 2001. * ''MARAD press release 14-05'', 28 July 2005, Maritime Administration announcement of the disposal of ex-''Meyer'' & ex-''Neptune''.External links