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Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

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Topic
Document Type
  • Ship History
Wars & Conflicts
  • World War II 1939-1945
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Location of Archival Materials
Astrolabe Bay

The origin of this name is obscure. Although Navy records explain the name as a "bay in Alaska," in keeping with the name category for this type of ship, Astrolabe Bay fails to appear on contemporary gazetteers or maps. The Geographic Dictionary of Alaska (1906) lists what the ship-namers perhaps had in mind, an Astrolabe Point, on the mainland of Alaska between what was then known as Cross Sound and Lituya Bay, named in 1883 for one of the ships in the French expedition under La Perouse.

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 The name Astrolabe Bay was assigned on 22 January 1943 to the auxiliary aircraft carrier, ACV-60, laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1097) on 5 January 1943 at Vancouver, Wash., by Kaiser Company, Inc. Prior to the ship's launching on 5 June 1943, however, the ship was renamed Guadalcanal (q.v.) on 3 April 1943, commemorating the recent successful conclusion of the arduous six-month campaign to wrest that island from Japanese hands.

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 Astrolabe Bay (CVE-97) was renamed Hollandia (q.v.) on 30 May 1944.

Published: Tue Jun 20 13:13:07 EDT 2023