ARD 20

Ship Name and Designation History

This section lists the names and designations that the ship had during its lifetime. The list is in chronological order.

USS ARD-20
Commissioned March 31 1944 - Decommissioned October 7 1947
Laid up in Pacific Reserve Fleet, San Pedro Group
Withdrawn from reserve October 1965
Modernized and converted to Bathyscaph Support Auxiliary Repair Dock (ARD(BS))
USS ARD(BS)-20
Recommissioned September 14 1966
WHITE SANDS ARD-20
Named, redesignated and Placed In Service March 9 1968
WHITE SANDS AGDS-1
Reclassified Deep Submergence Support Ship (AGDS) August 1 1973
Out of Service August 1974

Struck from Naval Registry September 1974
Sold September 1 1974 to Marine Power and Equipment, Seattle WA

Naval Covers

This section lists active links to the pages displaying covers associated with the ship. There should be a separate set of pages for each name of the ship (for example, Bushnell AG-32 / Sumner AGS-5 are different names for the same ship so there should be one set of pages for Bushnell and one set for Sumner). Covers should be presented in chronological order (or as best as can be determined).

Since a ship may have many covers, they may be split among many pages so it doesn't take forever for the pages to load. Each page link should be accompanied by a date range for covers on that page.

Covers Page 1 (DATE RANGE)

Postmarks

This section lists examples of the postmarks used by the ship. There should be a separate set of postmarks for each name and/or commissioning period. Within each set, the postmarks should be listed in order of their classification type. If more than one postmark has the same classification, then they should be further sorted by date of earliest known usage.

A postmark should not be included unless accompanied by a close-up image and/or an image of a cover showing that postmark. Date ranges MUST be based ONLY ON COVERS IN THE MUSEUM and are expected to change as more covers are added.

>>> If you have a better example for any of the postmarks, please feel free to replace the existing example.

Postmark Type --- Killer Bar Text	Date From to Date To	Thumbnail Link To Postmark Image	Thumbnail Link To Cover Image

Post Office Established June 19 1944 - Disestablished June 30 1945

NO ARD-20 POSTMARKS
AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME

DATE FROM
to
DATE TO

Note:

Other Information

WHITE SANDS participated in the search for the nuclear submarine USS SCORPION SSN-589 lost near the Azores

Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons...
American Campaign Medal - Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal - World War II Victory Medal - National Defense Service Medal

NAMESAKE - An area in the state of New Mexico

If you have images or information to add to this page, then either contact the Curator or edit this page yourself and add it. See Editing Ship Pages for detailed information on editing this page.