USS Hazard (AM-240)
USS Hazard at Freedom Park, Omaha, Nebraska. | |
| Career | 
|
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 1944 |
| Launched: | 21 May 1944 |
| Commissioned: | 31 October 1944 |
| Decommissioned: | 1946 |
| Struck: | 1971 |
| Fate: | Serves as a landlocked museum ship in Omaha, Nebraska. |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 530 tons |
| Length: | 184 ft 6 in |
| Beam: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Draft: | 9 ft 9 in (2.7 m) |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 15 kts. |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 104 |
| Armament: | 1 x 3"/50 4 x 40mm (2x2) 6 x 20mm (6x1) 2 x k guns (2x1) 2 x depth charge tracks. |
| Motto: | |
The fleet minesweeper USS Hazard (AM-240) was launched on October 1, 1944 and was commissioned on December 30, 1944. The vessel was built by the Winslow Marine Railway and Shipbuilding Corporation of Winslow, Washington. The Hazard was fitted for both wire and acoustic sweeping and could double as an anti-submarine warfare platform. The Admirable class vessels were also used for patrol and escort duties.
Hazard first served in this capacity, escorting a convoy from San Francisco to Pearl Harbor, and then running with convoys to Eniwetok and Ulithi. In March 1945, the sweeper was sent to Okinawa, where she first performed anti-submarine patrols before sweeping the waters off Kerama Retto in keeping with the minesweeper's slogan, "No Sweep, No Invasion."
At the war's end the ship cleared the seas off Korea and Japan for the occupation forces.
Returning to the United States in 1946, Hazard was decommissioned and joined the reserve fleet. Stricken from the Navy Register in 1971, Hazard was purchased by a group of Omaha businessmen and placed on public display. She is open to the public along with the submarine USS Marlin, landing ship USS LSM-45, an A-4 Skyhawk, an A-7 Corsair II, and an HH-52A Coast Guard helicopter at Freedom Park on the Omaha waterfront.
Hazard earned three battle stars for her World War II service.
Hazard is a National Historic Landmark, the only Admirable class minesweeper left in the United States. Her sister ship, the USS Inaugural (AM 242) was a museum ship in St. Louis until she was destroyed in the Great Flood of 1993.
