NOAAS George B. Kelez
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