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Silas Bent (AGS-26)

1965-1999 


Image related to Silas Bent
Caption: Silas Bent (AGS-26), on builder's trials, July 1965.

Silas Bent -- born on 10 October 1820 in St. Louis, Mo. --  was appointed midshipman at age 16 and served in the Navy for the next 25 years, during which he became well versed in the science of oceanography. He crossed the Atlantic five times, the Pacific twice, rounded Cape Horn four times and the Cape of Good Hope once. He was serving in Preble in 1849 when that brig sailed into Nagasaki, Japan, to secure the release of 18 shipwrecked American sailors imprisoned by the Japanese. He was flag lieutenant in Mississippi, Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's flagship during the expedition to Japan (1852-1854), and he made hydrographic surveys of Japanese waters. The results of his survey were published by the government in 1857 in Sailing Directions and Nautical Remarks: by Officers of the Late U.S. Naval Expedition to Japan. In 1860, Lt. Bent was detailed to the Hydrographic Division of the Coast Survey, but resigned from the Navy on 25 April 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, apparently because of Southern sympathies. He returned to St. Louis upon resigning from the Navy and took up the management of his wife's estate. Bent died on 26 August 1887 at Shelter Island, Long Island, N.Y., and was buried in Louisville, Ky.

(AGS-26: displacement 2,580 (full load) ; length 285', beam 48'; draft 15'; speed 15 knots (trial) ; complement 44; class Silas Bent)

Silas Bent (AGS-26), an oceanographic survey ship, was laid down on 2 March 1964 at Lorain, Ohio, by the American Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 16 May 1964; sponsored by Miss Nancy M. McKinley and Mrs. Jeffrey R. Grandy; and was delivered to the Military Sea Transportation Service (now the Military Sealift Command) in July 1965.

Silas Bent, the first of a new class of oceanographic survey ships, was manned by a Civil Service crew and operated by the Military Sealift Command as an integrated system for the gathering of vital oceanographic data in both underway and on-station modes. The data she collects is recorded in a form immediately usable by computers. She is under the technical control of the Naval Oceanographic Office in Suitland, Maryland.

The oceanographic survey ship completed her shakedown cruise during the winter of 1965 and 1966. Since that time, she has been conducting oceanographic research primarily in the northern Pacific, between Alaska and Japan. In May 1968, after only six days on station, she and scientists from the Naval Oceanographic Office located an ammunition-laden Liberty ship sunk in the North Pacific. In 1972, she visited Japan, for the second annual Ocean Development Conference held at Tokyo. During the conference, there were numerous tours and briefings held on board Silas Bent describing, for the ocean scientists of the world, her capabilities for measuring bathymetric depth, magnetic intensity, gravity, surface temperature, seismic reflection, sound velocity, ambient light, and salinity. In mid-September 1974, Silas Bent operatied in the waters off Kodiak, Alaska.

Ultimately transferred to the Government of Turkey under the Security Assistance Program on 29 September 1999, Silas Bent was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 28 October 1999.

Updated, Robert J. Cressman

11 November 2016 

Published: Fri Nov 11 19:27:08 EST 2016