USNS Point Barrow
Decommissioned Cargo Ship Dock of the US Navy
USNS Point Barrow (T-AKD-1) was a one-of-a-kind "Cargo Ship Dock." She was the lone ship in her class, named for Point Barrow (the northernmost point in Alaska).
Point Barrow was laid down 18 September 1956 by Maryland Drydock and Shipbuilding Company of Baltimore; launched 25 May 1957; sponsored by Mrs. Ruthven E. Libbey; and delivered to the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) 28 May 1958, where she was placed in service the following day. Especially designed for Arctic operations, Point Barrow was constructed along the general lines of a landing ship dock, but with strengthened hull and bow, and special insulation. After providing logistic support for U.S. forces in the Arctic, in 1962, Point Barrow transported huge fixed array radar antennas for the USS Enterprise and USS Long Beach to the East Coast.
After extensive modification in June 1965, Point Barrow carried Saturn rocket parts and stages from California to the Kennedy Space Center for NASA’s Apollo space flight program. T–AKD–1 also ferried LCMs to Southeast Asia in 1968 and 1969. Reclassified a "Deep Submergence Support Ship" and renamed USS Point Loma (AGDS-2) circa 1974, she was ultimately placed out of service and struck from the Naval Vessel Register 28 September 1993. Custody was transferred to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay in Benicia, California. Point Loma was scrapped by Marine Metal Inc.
“USNS Point Barrow” enters the record as decommissioned Cargo Ship Dock of the US Navy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what USNS, Point and Barrow can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7866668. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1962.
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