page_title: USS Thor
section_title: 1962–1969
hierarchical_section_title: USS Thor / Service history / 1962–1969
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy cable laying and repair ship USS Thor (ARC-4) lays the shore end of a cable, circa 1963. Floats hold the cable in position for sinking.
context_page_description: USS Thor was a cable repair ship that supported Project Caesar, the unclassified name for installation of the Sound Surveillance System. Originally the Artemis-class attack cargo ship Vanadis which was briefly in commission from 9 July 1945 to 27 March 1946, it was converted in 1955 after nine years in the reserve fleet.
  Thor, named after the Germanic god of thunder, was commissioned on 3 January 1956 and served in that capacity until 2 July 1973 when transferred to the Military Sealift Command for brief operation as USNS Thor until April 1974 when the ship was returned to the Maritime Administration for dispoasl. After removal of cable machinery the ship was eventually sold for scrap on 22 September 1977.
  Thor was one of four Navy cable ships supporting military cable projects from the 1950s until 1984 with construction of Zeus. The others were Aeolus, the other transport conversion, and the two Army designed cable ships, the only ships in the Navy designed and built as cable ships, Albert J. Myer and Neptune which were modernized in the 1980s.
context_section_description: Following an overhaul at Boston in the spring of 1962, Thor deployed to the Pacific once more for cable repair operations in the northern reaches of that ocean. In October, she returned to the eastern side of the Isthmus of Panama and busied herself with cable repair duties and oceanographic projects in the Caribbean. For the next five and one-half years, Thor continued to repair and lay cables in the western Atlantic and in the West Indies. Occasionally, she also participated in more oceanographic projects. During that half decade, she ranged as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as the Caribbean. Periodically, she also conducted operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
  On 20 April 1968, the ship departed Norfolk and steamed, via the Panama Canal and San Diego, for the Central Pacific. She conducted special operations in the vicinity of Midway Island and returned to Hawaii on 16 June for several days before departing Pearl Harbor on the 24th for the Marianas. She reached Guam on 5 July and spent the next month repairing cable around that island. She returned to Pearl Harbor on 13 August and operated in the Hawaiian Islands until she headed back toward the mainland on 7 November. Following a brief stop at Long Beach, California, Thor returned to Norfolk on 6 December.
  Over the next four years, Thor deployed to the Pacific three times. In August 1969, after seven months of operations along the east coast, she headed, via the Panama Canal and San Diego, to Pearl Harbor. Through November, she conducted operations near Midway Island and then returned to the Atlantic via Pearl Harbor, Long Beach, and the Panama Canal.
caption: USS Thor (ARC-4) lays the shore end of a cable, circa 1963. Floats hold the cable in position for sinking.
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