NOAAS George B. Kelez (R 441), previously NOAAS George B. Kelez (CRS 41), was an American research vessel in commission in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fleet from 1972 to 1980. Prior to her NOAA career, she operated under the United States Fish and Wildlife Service′s Bureau of Commercial Fisheries from 1962 to 1970 as US FWS George B. Kelez and the National Marine Fisheries Service from 1970 to 1972 as NOAAS George B. Kelez (CRS 41). Before becoming a research vessel, the ship was the United States Army freight and supply vessel U.S. Army FS-400 from 1944 to 1950. On transfer to the Navy the vessel was classified as a "light cargo ship" for the United States Navy′s Military Sea Transportation Service as USNS AKL-30 (T-AKL-30) from 1950 to 1961.
Construction The ship was built as a U.S. Army freight and supply vessel, Design 381 (officially Vessel, Supply, Diesel, Steel, 177') also called coastal cargo ships. The type was built by several shipbuilders during World War II with FS-400 being the last of a series of the design built by Ingalls Shipbuilding, Decatur, Alabama, in 1944. NOAA history, primarily concerned with the NOAA operation of the vessel, has design by Sturgeon Bay Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Wisconsin with Nickum & Sons Consultants of Seattle, Washington but the designs were of U.S. Army origin according to other references.
Service history
U.S. Army and U.S. Navy FS-400, was placed in service with the United States Army Transportation Corps during World War II with a United States Coast Guard crew. The ship operated in the Central Pacific Area calling at ports such as Noumea, Guadalcanal, and, after the end of the war, Wake Island. On 1 July 1950, she was transferred from the U.S. Army Transportation Corps to the United States Navy′s Military Sea Transportation Service, entering noncommissioned service in the U.S. Navy as USNS AKL-30 (T-AKL-30). She was stricken from the Naval Register in 1961 and declared excess property at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Mare Island, California, during the summer of 1961.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
In late 1961, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), an agency of the United States Department of the Interior, inspected AKL-30. The USFWS acquired her in 1962 for use as a fisheries research vessel, and in February 1962 towed her from Mare Island to Seattle, Washington, where she underwent conversion into a fisheries research ship over the next four and a half months at a cost of approximately US$100,000. Her USFWS crew did most of the conversion work, purchasing and installing new equipment such as fishing equipment, oceanographic equipment, and specialized electrical and refrigeration systems and modifying the captain's and crew's quarters. When her conversion was complete, the ship – now named US FWS George B. Kelez – was commissioned in a ceremony at Seattle on 20 July 1962 attended by Kelez's mother and brother. Kelez, a fisheries scientist who was the Assistant Fisheries Administrator for the Territory of Alaska, was one of five Fish and Wildlife Service employees who died on duty in the crash of a Grumman Goose amphibious aircraft in Alaska on 1 September 1954, and the ship carried a plaque – read aloud at the ceremony – that read:
United States Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Motor Ship George B. Kelez To inspire those who man her and those who follow her course in the great international seas, this research ship is hereby dedicated to the honor of George B. Kelez, Fishery Research Biologist and Alaska Fishery Administrator of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries and Fish and Wildlife Service from 1930 to 1954. This ship and her scientists will further the research ideals and objectives on the high seas and in Alaskan waters which motivated his entire career. Wherever this living ship goes, there goes also the spirit and faith of George B. Kelez, who dedicated his life to conservation of our fishery resources. We are proud of the name, proud of the vessel and proud of the crew. May our Lord protect and guide you.
Signed by Samuel J. Hutchinson, Regional Director, 20 July 1962. Assigned to the USFWS's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (BCF), George B. Kelez gave the BCF a new capability to conduct oceanographic and open-ocean salmon studies during the winter; previously, the BCF had relied on chartered vessels for such studies, but they were too small for safe winter operations in the open ocean and were limited to spring and summer operations. George B. Kelez also provided the BCF with adequate on-board laboratory space and storage space for gear and spare parts for the first time. George B. Kelez's first cruise for the BCF – a six-week shakedown cruise in the Gulf of Alaska and off the Aleutian Islands – began in late July 1962. During the cruise, she conducted experimental salmon gillnetting. During the 1960s, she made several salmon-fishing cruises in Bristol Bay and other waters off Alaska in support of the BCF's Biological Laboratory. During the mid-1960s, she also participated in several experiments designed to determine ocean current flows, using drift bottles in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and oceanographic data-gathering buoys equipped with radio transmitters released in the Pacific Ocean 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) off the coast of Washington. In early 1966, she took part in the first winter oceanographic measurement of the Alaskan Stream – a current related closely to the formation of the salmon fishing ground – in the western subarctic region of the North Pacific.
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