USNS Watertown was a Watertown-class missile range instrumentation ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 1960 and converted from her SS Niantic VictoryVictory ship cargo configuration to a missile tracking ship, a role she retained for eleven years before being placed out of service in 1971.
From 1944 until 1957, Niantic Victory was operated for the U.S. Maritime Commission by a succession of contractor firms. Her first operator was the American-Hawaiian Steamship Line for service during World War II starting on 18 May 1944. She supplied cargo in the Pacific Ocean for the Pacific War. After the war on 6 November 1946 she was operated by Waterman SS Corporation as part of the Marshall Plan. On 30 May 1948 after completing her relief efforts she was removed from service and placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Wilmington, N.C.. She was laid up till 24 August 1950, but with a new war starting in the Far East she was remove cleaned up and chartered to Union Sulphur and Oil Company.
During the Korean War she was operated by the Union Sulphur and Oil Company. SS Niantic Victory served as merchant marine naval supplying goods for the Korean War. About 75 percent of the personnel taking to Korean from the Korean War came by the merchant marine. SS Niantic Victory transported goods, mail, food and other supplies. About 90 percent of the cargo was moved by merchant marine naval to the war zone. SS Niantic Victory made trip between 18 November 1950 and 23 December 1952 helping American forces engaged against Communist aggression in South Korea. At the end of the war on 8 April 1955 her operator was changed to Pope and Talbot SS Company. On 11 December 1956 operator was changed to Isbrandtsen Company till 1957. She was laid up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay, Benecia, Ca. on 24 January 1958.
Niantic Victory was now the Navy Department Military Sea Transportation Service range instrumentation ship, USNS Watertown. For the next 11 years, she served in the Pacific Ocean in support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force on the latter service's Western Missile Test Range. She operated as a mobile tracking station, recording test data from missiles and satellites out of range of land-based stations. Watertown carried instrumentation to track and record flight events for military missile and NASA manned spacecraft, extending the coverage of the tracking network over the Pacific Ocean. She was slated at one time to be part of the Apollo 8 recovery team but was dropped from the program. In 1969, she called at Pitcairn Island. Two other ships were reconfigured in to this new class, Watertown-class missile range instrumentation ship, the USNS Huntsville and the USNS Wheeling .
Inactivation
In February 1971, the Air Force decided that it no longer required Watertowns services and she was removed from service. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 16 February 1972, and she was returned to the Maritime Administration at its berthing facility at Suisun Bay, California, on 23 May 1974. She was sold to Dongkuk Steel Mill Co., Ltd on 23 May 1974 and scrapped in Pusan, South Korea. She arrived in South Korea on 16 July 1974.
