Passaconaway II (AN–86)
(AN-86; dp. 785; l. 168'8"; b. 33110", dr. 10'10", sp. 12.3 k.; cpl. 46; a. 1 3", 3 20mm., cl. Cohoes)
An Indian chief of the region about Pennacook on the Merrimac River as early as 1632. "The most noted powwow and sorcerer of all the country" according to the chronicler Hubbard. He formally submitted to the English in 1644, and died at a very advanced age. Also Mount Passaconaway in New Hampshire, named for the sachem of the Merrimack tribe of Indians, of Algonquian Stock. The first ship was named for the place and the second ship for the person.
II
The second Passaconaway (AN-86), authorized as YN-111, was laid down 15 April 1944 by Marine Iron and Shipbuilding Co., Duluth, Minn.; launched 30 June 1944, sponsored by Miss Elizabeth Jayne Hughes; commissioned 27 April 1945.
Following shakedown, Passaconaway transited the Panama Canal and served with ServRon 4 during the later stages of World War II. She tended anti-submarine nets in the Admiralty Islands during the summer of 1945, then for the next 12 months was engaged throughout the Western Pacific in other operations common to her type. She laid channel buoys in the Caroline Islands, conducted salvage operations and set mooring buoys in the Marianas, and assisted other ships in supplying Marcus Island and Iwo Jima. Following a brush with a typhoon in the spring of 1946, she was ordered to Pearl Harbor for repairs after which she returned to San Diego where she decommissioned in December. Passaconaway was transferred to the Maritime Administration in October 1962. Since that time and into 1970 she has remained a unit of the National Defense Reserve Fleet laid up at Suisun Bay, California.
