USS Heywood (AP-2)

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Artist's concept of USS Heywood (Transport No. 2), 1919
Click on this photograph for links to larger images of this class.

Class:        HEYWOOD (AP-2)
Design        Navy AP-2
Displacement (tons):        10,000 normal
Dimensions (feet):        483.8' oa, 460.0' wl x 64.1' wl x 19.1' mn
Original Armament:        8-5"/51 2-3"/50
Later armaments:        --
Complement        419
Speed (kts.):        16
Propulsion (HP):        5,400
Machinery:        Turbine, 2 screws

Construction:

AP	Name	Ord.	Builder	Keel	Launch	Commiss.
2	HEYWOOD	--	(None)	--	--	--

Disposition:

AP	Name	Decomm.	Strike	Disposal	Fate	MA Sale
2	HEYWOOD	--	--	--	Canc.	--

Class Notes:
FY 1919. The Naval Appropriation Act for FY 1917 that became law on 29 Aug 16 authorized a three-year building program of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty torpedo-boat destroyers, nine fleet submarines, fifty-eight coast submarines, one experimental (Neff) submarine, and two gunboats. To support these combatants it also authorized three fuel ships (oilers), one repair ship, one transport, one hospital ship, two destroyer tenders, one fleet submarine tender, and two ammunition ships. Sixty-six of these ships including one fuel ship, the hospital ship, and one ammunition ship were to be begun during FY 1917, the others were to be funded and begun during the following two fiscal years. The transport was funded in FY 1919 (Act of 1 Jul 18). The name HEYWOOD was assigned to Transport No. 2 by SecNav on 7 Feb 19 and promulgated in General Order 459 of 31 Mar 19, and the ship was designated AP-2 when the Navy's standard hull classification scheme was implemented on 17 Jul 20.

In 1910, when the Board forwarded to the Secretary of the Navy its first detailed characteristics for Navy transports, plans for an advanced base contemplated the use of a Marine brigade consisting of two regiments of about 1,300 officers and men each and required two transports of similar design (although their loadouts would differ) to carry the men and material to establish the base. One ship would carry the fixed defense regiment and one would bring the mobile regiment. The Board's recommendations for FY 1914 included two transports, and the approval of HENDERSON in that year left a requirement for a second transport. The General Board subsequently submitted characteristics for transports for each of the next four building programs (FY 1915 to 1918), and these included a number of detailed requirements resulting from a General Board staff study of the interior arrangement of U.S. and foreign transports dated 25 Feb 13. On 19 Oct 16 the General Board forwarded to SecNav characteristics common to all fleet auxiliaries for Fiscal Year 1918, including a sustained speed of at least 14 knots, a steaming radius of 8,000 miles at 10 knots, and twin screws housed under the stern. The special type characteristics for transports, forwarded on the same date, called for a minimum draft that was not to exceed 24 feet, a beam of not less than 60 feet, quarters for 68 Marine officers and 1,600 men under arms, 27 boats including four scows for landing the guns and heavy stores of the advance base outfit, and stables for ten horses (down from 60 in FY 1917). The main and upper decks were to have gangways (open areas between the deckhouse and the side of the ship) that were not less than 16 feet in width to provide room for military formations and exercises (HENDERSON was criticized because these had been reduced during the design process to ten feet or less) and the headroom under the superstructure and bridge decks was to be at least eight feet to permit execution of the manual of arms by the embarked troops. The ship was to have facilities for handling cargo quickly including cargo ports in the side if possible, cargo booms capable of lifting weights up to 10 tons, and equipment for anchoring by the stern. The armament was to be 8-5” and 4-3” anti-aircraft guns, with the 5” guns located as far forward and aft as practicable and four of them so located as to permit of being readily dismounted for service ashore. (The Bureau of Ordnance recommended that the ship's armament should be mounted with the sole view of its retention on board and that additional 5” guns should be stowed on board if it was necessary to land such weapons.) The ship was also to carry 100 mines of the anchored contact type. In addition to having coal and oil for the steaming radius of 8,000 miles at 10 knots the ship was to have emergency oil bunkers with fuel for another 4,000 miles at 10 knots.

SecNav approved these characteristics on 12 Dec 16 but noted that, because the program contemplated by the Navy Department for FY 1918 did not include a transport, the preparation of plans for the vessel was not then desired. Design work began when it became clear that Congress in its FY 1919 appropriation would fund all of the ships in the three year 1917-1919 building program that had not been funded in FY 1917 or FY 1918 including the transport. The matter was urgent, however, because the contract for the vessel had to be issued before the end of the present session of Congress, which meant that the contract plans, specifications, and weights had to be available to bidders by 15 Jan 19. On 19 Aug 18 the material Bureaus (Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, and Ordnance) informed SecNav that in the design of recent auxiliary vessels (HENDERSON, the hospital ship, ammunition ship, destroyer and submarine tenders, and repair ship) the same size and form of underwater body had been used for all the vessels and that it was proposed also to make the 1919 transport a duplicate of these vessels. The design of HENDERSON was to be followed as far as practicable with only minor modifications in the present design. HENDERSON carried no animals and the number of troop accommodations had been increased since commissioning, and in view of her satisfactory service the Bureaus recommended that the 1919 transport be practically a duplicate with the exception that the speed would be increased from 14 knots to 16 knots. SecNav approved this recommendation on 3 Sep 18. On 14 Nov 18 BuC&R informed the other two Bureaus that, upon further consideration of the 1919 repair ship and transport it had become necessary to modify the lines of the HENDERSON to some extent, resulting in slight increases in beam and length. The beam was also increased to improve metacentric height because HENDERSON was considered to be somewhat cranky. The hull lines would be formed so that the power required to obtain the 16 knots would not exceed that required to drive the destroyer and submarine tenders, which were designed on HENDERSON' s lines. BuC&R stated that it was about to proceed with design of the 1919 transport and asked for any changes that the other Bureaus wanted to make in the HENDERSON design. The Bureau of Steam Engineering responded with a proposal to install turbines and reduction gear in the vessel instead of reciprocating engines and the Bureau of Ordnance, after stating that HENDERSON's battery was 4-5”/50 guns, assigned 4-5”/51 guns to the new ship. On 12 Dec 18 designers agreed to include a heavy mainmast with boat crane as in HENDERSON and offset it with a large amount of water ballast in the forward inner bottom to control the resulting trim of the ship by the stern while light. The designers also decided not to include weights for gyro stabilizers in the design. They found it impossible to provide 16-foot wide gangways in the ship and settled for using the width of deckhouses as in HENDERSON and accepting the increase in gangway width that resulted from the increased beam of the design. On the same day SecNav signed the circular of requirements for bidders, which was to be made available to bidders by 19 Jan 20, and on 14 Dec 18 he approved the engineering and ordnance changes and the modifications to the ship's hull lines.

On 10 Dec 18 the Marine Corps asked for a number of enhancements in the design, but on 29 Jan 19 BuC&R explained that it was impossible to provide for all the men or cargo spaces that the Marines wanted as the dimensions of the vessel were the same as HENDERSON except that the beam had been increased from 61 to 64 feet. As designed the vessel would accommodate 1,600 troops and 87 troop officers, the cargo spaces would remain about as on HENDERSON, and no arrangements had been provided for carrying horses. On the other hands the fresh water tanks had been materially increased in capacity, from 320 tons to 500 tons. The Commandant of the Marine Corps replied on 1 Feb 19 that, in view of the limitations on the tonnage of the vessel, most of the arrangements provided were satisfactory, although the Marines felt that a slightly larger type of vessel would, without undue increase in draft, provide accommodations more suitable for carrying a regiment of troops for a long period and permit the cargo carrying capacity that the Marines had requested.

The armament approved for HEYWOOD on 14 Dec 18 consisted of four 5”/51 guns, two 1-pdr guns, and four machine guns. On 20 Dec 18 BuC&R noted to BuOrd that no mention was made of anti-aircraft guns and asked if any would be fitted. BuOrd replied to BuC&R and to CNO on 28 Jan 19 that none was specified for the transport while the repair ship, also then out for bids, was to have 4-3” AA guns with the same main battery of 4-5”/51. BuOrd recommended that the AA batteries of both ships be changed to 2-3” guns. BuC&R noted in its endorsement to SecNav that the plans of HEYWOOD as issued to bidders showed two AA guns while those for the repair ship showed four. SecNav approved the change to the repair ship's armament on 8 Feb 19 and BuC&R told BuOrd on 13 Feb 19 that the bidders had been notified. On 1 Mar 19 BuOrd admitted to CNO that it had erroneously told the General Board on 10 Dec 18 that HENDERSON had only four 5” guns and that due to this error the new transport was to have a battery that was considered insufficient. (The Bureau had been told in 1918 that four guns would be removed in Europe but they were not.) It recommended that the battery of HEYWOOD be changed to 8 guns. BuC&R on 12 Mar 19 said that the ship had been designed for only four gun emplacements, two near the bow and two near the stern, and that to provide for eight guns at this time would require extensive modifications to the ship. It recommended retaining the four gun battery. But the General Board on 19 Apr 19 firmly stated that it had not varied in its recommendation that transports carry 8-5" guns, and on 7 May 19 BuC&R marked up prints to show two ways of increasing the ship's battery, one by mounting all eight guns on the main deck as in HENDERSON and one by placing the four additional guns on the upper deck as in the DOBBIN class destroyer tenders. On 20 May 19 SecNav approved the second arrangement for HEYWOOD.

On 3 Jun 19 the General Board issued its opinion of a letter from the Commanding Officer of USS SIBONEY (ID-2999) stating that SIBONEY was “astonishingly superior” to HENDERSON in troop carrying capacity and speed and should either be permanently acquired or used as the basis for the design of the new transport. In addressing this proposal (which the General Board subsequently rejected because it overlooked the requirement for, among other things, large cargo capacity) BuC&R provided a comparison of the characteristics of HENDERSON and the current design of HEYWOOD. The main differences were in extreme beam (64.2' in HEYWOOD vice 61.9' in HENDERSON), cold storage (7,850 vice 3,946 cubic feet), maximum sustained speed (an estimated 16 knots vice 13.5 knots), maximum fuel capacity (2,380 tons oil and 1,017 tons coal vice 1,401 and 989 tons), and the resulting steaming radius (8,300 vice 6,480 miles). The cargo capacities of the two designs were generally similar and both were designed to carry 1,600 troops, although HENDERSON (and probably HEYWOOD as well) could carry up to 2,100 men during the summer.

Bids were opened for the construction of the ship in mid-March 1920. There was only one lump sum bid from a Pacific Coast firm, and that firm had never built ships before. The Puget Sound Navy Yard also made a bid, but all of the bids were beyond the limit of cost of similar ships to which Congress had applied cost limit in previous fiscal years. Although the FY 1919 ships were authorized without a cost limit the Navy Department was apparently reluctant to award contracts without obtaining authority to spend the additional money. The same problem was encountered with the FY 1919 submarine tender and destroyer tender, which exceeded the limits set for these types in FY 1917 and FY 1918. In its opinion of 3 Jun 19 the General Board reiterated that two transports were needed in the fleet and urged that the construction of HEYWOOD, whose plans were practically complete, be undertaken as designed. The FY 1920 appropriation (Act of 11 Jul 19) increased the funding limit for the tenders but made no reference to transports, and the Navy Department ultimately took no further steps to build HEYWOOD. In 1921 work on the ship was described as "in abeyance." The characteristics of her design were published in the Ships Data Book through the 1924 edition, but they were deleted in the next (1929) edition. By this time all that remained of her was the Congressional authorization of 1 Jul 19 to build one transport.

On 29 Oct 40 SecNav approved the assignment of the name HEYWOOD to the newly-acquired SS CITY OF BALTIMORE, to which BuShips on 31 Oct 40 assigned the hull number AP-12 (later APA-6). On 29 Jan 41 CNO noted that BuShips had done this without cancelling the hull number AP-2 that was already associated with the name HEYWOOD. Since BuShips wanted to reuse the number AP-2 (and the Congressional authorization associated with it) for a new ship to be built by the Maritime Commission, CNO finally resolved the matter on 5 Mar 41 by cancelling the assignment of the name HEYWOOD to AP-2 and approving the name DOYEN for the new AP-2, which later became APA-1 (q.v.).

Ship Notes:

AP	Name	Notes
2	HEYWOOD	Authorized and designed but never ordered. Name canc. 5 Mar 41.