Marabout AMc-50

Marabout

A large stork whose wings and tall feathers are used in millinery.

(AMc-50: dp. 173; 1. 97'1"; b. 21'3"; dr. 9'; sp. 10 k.;
cpl. 17; a. 2.50 cal. mg. ; cl. Accentor)

Marabout (AMc-50) was laid down 20 December 1940 by the Herresboff Mfg. Co., Bristol, R.I.; launched 17 February 1941; sponsored by Mrs. R. F. Haffennfferl and commissioned 8 July 1941, Lt. H. M. Larsen, USNLR, in command.

Following shakedown off the mid-Atlantic seaboard, Marabout was assigned to the 1st Naval District at Boston. On 9 December, 2 days -after the United States entered World War 11, she sailed for Bermuda to help combat German U-boats in the western Atlantic.

In May 1942, the U-boats began laying mines off the Atlantic coasts. Starting 14 May at St. Johns, Newfoundland these activities threatened merechantmen as far as ST. Lucia in the West Indies. Marabout, a coastal minesweeper, bad the mission of insuring safe passage to Allied shipping through the entrances of the ports.

On 13 June, Marabout was assigned to the 5th Naval District, where mines laid by U-701, 12 June, sank a tanker, a trawler, and a coal barge; and damaged another tanker and destroyer Bainbridge. Joining ServRon 5 in the fall, she supported units of the Meet Operation Training Command, in particular TG 23.1, until ordered to New London, 7 November 1944, for duty under ComSubLant. There, for the next year and a half, she performed widely varied duties including radar jamming and sonar operations with other Naval and Coast Guard units in the area and at the Submarine School.

On 16 May 1946, she steamed for Boston, where she decommissioned on the 29th. Transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal, she was sold to the City of Boston, 31 July for service as a fireboat.