USNS Neptune (ARC-2)

USNS Neptune (ARC-2), was the lead ship in her class of cable repair ships in U.S. Naval service. The ship was built by Pusey & Jones Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware, Hull Number 1108, as the USACS William H. G. Bullard named  for Rear Adm. William H. G. Bullard. She was the first of two Maritime Commission type S3-S2-BP1 ships built for the US Army near the end of World War II. The other ship was the Albert J. Myer, which later joined her sister ship in naval service as the USNS Albert J. Myer. The ship was built by Pusey & Jones Corp. of Wilmington, Delaware as Hull Number 1108.

Function
Neptune's assignments were typically to transport, deploy, retrieve and repair submarine cables, test underwater sound devices, and conduct acoustic, hydrographic, and bathymetric surveys.

Career
Neptune may have done some cable work for the Army soon after delivery in 1946 (unverified at present), but she was soon handed to the Maritime Commission and placed in the reserve fleet.

In 1953, Neptune was activated by the Navy to support the SOSUS program. She went to the Bethlehem Steel Co. in Baltimore, Maryland for a number of modifications: e.g., electric cable machinery (in place of steam), precision navigation instrumentation, and a helicopter platform over the fantail. She was commissioned on 1 June 1953 as a regular Navy ship USS Neptune (ARC-2), with Cdr. Robert A. Bogardus in command.

In 1973, Neptune transferred to the Military Sealift Command (MSC), was re-designated T-ARC-2, and continued operations with a mostly civilian crew. Neptune was extensively modernized in 1982 by General Dynamics Corp. in Quincy, Massachusetts, and that work included new turbo-electric engines. It is said that Neptune and sister ship USNS Albert J. Myer were the last ships in the Navy to operate using reciprocating steam engines.

Neptune performed cable repair duties all over the world until 1991, when she'd been in service for some 38 years. During her career, she received a Navy E ribbon in 1988.

Inactivated in 1991, she was eventually placed in the James River reserve fleet near Ft. Eustis, VA. The ex-Neptune was dismantled and recycled by International Shipbreaking Ltd. of Brownsville, TX in late 2005.