Motherships

Recently there have been quite a few posts out in MILBLOG land discussing the concept of Motherships; such as this one at Information Dissemination.

Like many things, the concept of Motherships is not new - merely forgotten. The USS Graham County was converted from LST-1176 to AGP-1176 in 1972. She was modified to provide hotel services, repairs, spares, fuel, and ammo for up to eight Ashville class gunboats. She was deployed to a new homeport in Naples, Italy in 1972 escorting USS Antelope (PG-86) and USS Ready (PG-87). They were later joined by USS Grand Rapids (PG-98) and USS Douglas (PG-100). PATDIV 21 returned to the US in 1975 and all 17 of the Ashville class gunboats were decommissioned

Here are a few photos of Patrol Division 21 in the '70s.


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Gunboats nested alongside USS Graham County (AGP-1176) in Barcelona, Spain.


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Somewhere in the Med.


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The ships of Patrol Division 21


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Antelope and Ready alongside


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Ready, Antelope, and Grand Rapids nested