Ethiopian training ship Ethiopia (A-01)

Ethiopia (A-01) was a training ship of the Ethiopian Navy in commission from 1962 to 1991. She was the largest naval ship ever to operate in Ethiopian service.

Construction and United States Navy service 1944-1960
Ethiopia was built as the United States Navy Barnegat-class seaplane tender USS Orca (AVP-49). Commissioned in 1944, she served in the New Guinea campaign and Philippines campaign during World War II, and at Okinawa and the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests post-war before being decommissioned in 1947. Recommissioned in 1951, she served in the Pacific until decommissioned again in 1960.

Ethiopian Navy service 1962-1993
In January 1962, Orca was loaned to Ethiopia under the Military Assistance Program and was commissioned as the training ship Ethiopia (A-01). Sold outright to Ethiopia in March 1976, Ethiopia was the Ethiopian Navy's largest ship from her arrival in 1962 until her scrapping in 1993.

In May 1991, at the end of the Eritrean War of Independence, the independence of Eritrea made Ethiopia a landlocked country. Ethiopia was among ten Ethiopian Navy ships to escape to Yemen.

Final disposition
Never again operational after arriving in Yemen in 1991, Ethiopia survived as a hulk there until she was sold for scrap in 1993. In 1996, the Ethiopian Navy itself was disestablished.