USS Sentinel (AM-113)
1942 Auk-class minesweeper
USS Sentinel (AM-113) was an Auk-class minesweeper built for the United States Navy during World War II; she was the third U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name. It was laid down on 28 November 1941 by the American Ship Building Company, Cleveland, Ohio; launched on 23 May 1942; and commissioned on 3 November 1942.
World War II Atlantic Fleet operations
Sentinel reported for duty with the Atlantic Fleet on 15 January 1943. The minesweeper experienced her first enemy contact on 20 February while escorting Merak (AF-21) from Bermuda to Norfolk, Virginia when an escorting aircraft dropped a smoke bomb 2,500 yards astern. Picking up suspected submarine wake noise with her echo-ranging equipment, Sentinel attacked on two contacts within a 25-minute period. There was no evidence of damage to the enemy, except for some dark brown or black matter which appeared after the second starboard depth charge exploded.
On 8 March, Sentinel, accompanied by Seer (AM-112), departed Norfolk, Virginia for patrol duty, joined a convoy on the 17th, and anchored at Norfolk the next day. The two minesweepers got underway again on the 19th, and possibly encountered a submarine the next day. They fired depth charges which produced no results, and proceeded to New London, Connecticut. Sentinel spent the remainder of the month in training in Long Island Sound and moored at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The public source identifies “USS Sentinel (AM-113)” as 1942 Auk-class minesweeper. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sentinel, AM-113 and Auk-class.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Sentinel (AM-113)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.