The USS Florikan (ASR-9) was a Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

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Florikan was launched 14 June 1942 by Moore Dry Dock Company

Moore Dry Dock Company

Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and shipbuilding company in Oakland, California. It was started in San Francisco in 1905 as the Moore & Scott Iron Works, but was destroyed by fire in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It reopened soon and in 1909 purchased the Boole Shipyard in Oakland....

, Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

; sponsored by Mrs. L. Sahm; and commissioned 5 April 1943, Lieutenant N. K. Banks, USNR, in command.

Service history

From 3 to 20 July 1943, Florikan aided in the training of submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

s at Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...

, acting as target, screening, escort, and torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 recovery vessel. She served on similar duty at Midway

Midway Atoll

Midway Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Tokyo, Japan. Unique among the Hawaiian islands, Midway observes UTC-11 , eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and one hour...

 between 24 July and 2 September, then sailed for Kiska, Alaska, arriving 7 September. For a month, she carried out diving operations on Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese submarine I-7, which had been grounded by her crew south of Kiska Harbor. Their attempts to scuttle the submarine had been incomplete, the after half remaining intact in a hundred feet of water. Seven divers entered the hulk, recovering important documents and personal papers of value in intelligence work.

Florikan returned to duty at Midway from 9 October 1943 to 12 November, then served at Pearl Harbor from 16 November to 11 June 1944. With Majuro

Majuro

Majuro , is a large coral atoll of 64 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and forms a legislative district of the Ratak Chain of the Marshall Islands. The atoll itself has a land area of and encloses a lagoon of...

 activated as a forward base for submarines, Florikan trained submarines there from 18 June to 31 January 1945, then returned to duty at Pearl Harbor through the close of the war.

Assigned to home port at San Diego, Florikan first arrived there 12 September 1946, and through the next 15 years, trained submarine rescue personnel there, took part in fleet exercises and training operations, and brought her specialized services to the Far East in a tour of duty with the 7th Fleet

United States Seventh Fleet

The Seventh Fleet is the United States Navy's permanent forward projection force based in Yokosuka, Japan, with units positioned near Japan and South Korea. It is a component fleet force under the United States Pacific Fleet. At present, it is the largest of the forward-deployed U.S. fleets, with...

 each year save 1952, 1954, 1956, and 1958. On her 1960 deployment, she escorted a Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

ese ship across the Pacific when outward bound.

She was decommissioned on 2 August 1991 and struck from the Naval Vessel Register

Naval Vessel Register

The Naval Vessel Register is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and...

on 3 September 1991 and remained at Inactive Ships, Pearl Harbor until 6 October 2000, when she entered the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet. Her title was transferred from the Navy to MARAD on 28 July 2001. On 28 November 2006, she was cleaned for possible use as a SINKEX target, but instead MARAD issued a contract to dismantle Florikan on 2 July 2010 to Marine Metals of Brownsville, Tx for $895,708. Florikan completed her hull cleaning on 2 August 2010 at Bay Ship & Yacht, Alameda, Ca and she was completely dismantled on 29 December 2010, when she was withdrawn from the reserve fleet inventory.