YG-5
1905-1952
(Garbage Lighter No. 5: displacement 90; capacity 11,536 cubic feet; length 110'; beam 30')
The wooden hull, eight-pocket, side-dumping non-self propelled Garbage Lighter No. 5 was built by the Boston (Mass.) Navy Yard, and completed in 1905.
It was employed in the First Naval District for its entire period of service. Although earmarked to be replaced in 1925, YG-5 (so designated on 17 July 1920) remained in full time use in the First Naval District in 1940, with its upkeep being logged at $6,000 for the year 1941.
By the following year [1942], YG-5 was in fair condition, and by the end of World War II was still in use, the need for its humble services obviously undiminished. "Repairs are being made to keep [the] subject craft in service," one observer wrote on 25 October 1945, however, "although the craft is very old and in a very poor condition and normally would be considered beyond economical repair."
The office of the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) allocated YG-5 to the First Naval District in the post-war period, and she was still in service at the Boston Naval Shipyard in 1949. A material inspection conducted on 5 June 1951, however, found it in "poor" condition. Reclassified as a non-self propelled garbage lighter, YGN-5, the venerable service craft was authorized for disposal by the New York (N.Y.) Naval Shipyard on 28 January 1952 with the CNO instructing the Commandant of the First Naval District (ComOne) to "place [the] craft out of service and advise [Commander, New York Naval Shipyard]" when it was "stripped and ready for sale." That same day [28 January 1952], the office of the Secretary of the Navy authorized the CNO to dispose of YGN-5. It was stricken from the Naval Register on 25 February 1952. On 6 June 1952, ComOne notified the CNO that ex-YGN-5 had been sold and delivered to a representative of Bernstein & Jacobson, of Portland, Maine, on 9 May 1952.
Robert J. Cressman
16 February 2022
