page_title: USS Sable (IX-81)
section_title: Refit
hierarchical_section_title: USS Sable (IX-81) / Naval service / Refit
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy training carrier USS Sable (IX-81) launching a Naval Aircraft Factory TDN-1 drone while steaming off Traverse City, Michigan (USA), during flight tests on 10 August 1943. Note this aircraft's unoccupied cockpit. The TDN was intended for use as a television-guided attack drone.
context_page_description: USS Sable (IX-81) was a United States Navy training ship during World War II, originally built as the passenger ship Greater Buffalo, a sidewheel excursion steamboat. She was purchased by the Navy in 1942 and converted to a training aircraft carrier to be used on the Great Lakes. She lacked a hangar deck, elevators, or armament and was not a true warship, but she provided advanced training of naval aviators in carrier takeoffs and landings.
  On her first day of service, 59 pilots became qualified within nine hours of operations, with each making eight takeoffs and landings. Pilot training was conducted seven days a week in all types of weather conditions. President George H. W. Bush was one of the aviators who trained on Sable.
  Sable was decommissioned on 7 November 1945. She was sold for scrapping on 7 July 1948 to the H.H. Buncher Company. She and her sister ship USS Wolverine – which together were used for the training of over 17,000 pilots, landing signal officers and other navy personnel – hold the distinction of being the only freshwater, coal-fired, side paddle-wheel aircraft carriers used by the United States Navy.
context_section_description: When leaving her port in Detroit for the last time heading for her refit it was reported that Greater Buffalo was "saluted" by those on board the other vessels in the area. Sable was converted at the Erie Plant of American Shipbuilding Company at Buffalo, New York. The cabins and superstructure of the ship were removed leaving the main deck. Along with additional supports, a steel flight deck was installed instead of the originally planned Douglas-fir wooden deck similar to what was installed on USS Wolverine. The steel deck also allowed Sable to be used for the testing a variety of non-skid coatings applied to the flight deck. The deck of Sable was equipped with eight sets of arresting cables as well. A  bridge island or superstructure was constructed on the starboard side of the ship along with outriggers forward of the island for storing damaged aircraft. On the main deck a lecture room, along with projection equipment, was constructed that could accommodate more than forty aviators with bunks for twenty one aviators. She was also equipped with a sick bay, operating room, laundry, tailor shop, crew quarters, a cafeteria style galley for the crew, a mess hall for the officers, storerooms and a refrigerator. Sable lacked a hangar deck, elevators or armament, as her role was for the training of pilots for carrier take-offs and landings. A number of crew members assigned to Sable prior to her commissioning were survivors of USS Lexington which had been lost earlier during the Battle of the Coral Sea. Sable was commissioned on 8 May 1943 with Captain Warren K. Berner in command.
caption: A TDN-1 assault drone aboard Sable 10 August 1943
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