USNS Private Jose F . Valdez ( T - AG - 169 ) USNS " Private Jose F . Valdez " ( T - AG - 169 ) , named after World War II Medal of Honor recipient PFC Jose F . Valdez , was a technical research ship in operation during the 1960s . The " Galloping Ghost of the Ivory Coast " or " Grey Ghost of the African Coast " , as she was affectionately called by her crew , was deployed around Africa from 1961 until 1969 . Army service , 1945 – 1949 . The " Private Jose F . Valdez " , was launched as " Round Splice " on 27 October 1944 , sponsored by Mrs . Guy R . Porter , and transferred to the American Ship Building Company , Chicago , Illinois , for completion on 15 December 1944 . The ship was delivered to the U . S . Army for operation on 16 February 1945 . " Round Splice " , owned by the Maritime Commission and operated by the Army Transportation Service during and after World War II , and was renamed " Private Jose F . Valdez " in 1947 . Transfer to the Navy , 1950 – 1959 . On 2 September 1950 she was acquired by the United States Navy , designated T - APC - 119 , and assigned to Military Sea Transportation Service . Manned by a civil service crew she operated in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean areas until August 1951 . Between then and December she cruised the Mediterranean Sea and in January 1952 began runs to Newfoundland and Greenland which continued until she was ordered inactivated in late 1959 . On 22 December she arrived in the James River National Defense Reserve Fleet berthing area and was transferred to the custody of the Maritime Administration . Technical Research Ship , 1961 – 1969 . " Private Jose F . Valdez " was reacquired by the Navy in August 1961 . Converted to a Technical Research Ship and reassigned to MSTS , she departed Brooklyn , her homeport , in November 1961 on the first of her extended cruises to the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans . The USNS designation indicates that the ship was manned by civilians . A crew of approximately 55 civilians operated the ship while a detachment of approximately 100 Navy personnel carried out the research operations . The Navy detachment typically included three officers ; almost all enlisted men were Communications Technicians ( a rating that has been renamed Cryptologic Technician ) . An advantage of the USNS designation is that the ship was not required to return to an American port on a regular basis . Thus the first deployment of the " Valdez " started in 1961 and she did not return to the USA until 1967 . Operation in African waters . Since the " Happy Jose " did not regularly return to the USA , the crew was rotated by flying them to a major port city in Africa , such as Cape Town . This occurred on an annual basis . The old crew would be flown back to the USA . The " Valdez " was typically at sea for about 30 days and then spent four or five days in port . Some of the sub - Saharan ports of call , from West to East , were Dakar , Senegal ; Freetown , Sierra Leone ; Monrovia , Liberia ; Abidjan , Ivory Coast ; Lagos , Nigeria ; Brazzaville , Republic of Congo ; Luanda , Angola ; Walvis Bay , Southwest Africa ( now Namibia ) ; Cape Town , South Africa ; Port Elizabeth , South Africa ; Durban , South Africa ; Lourenço Marques ( now Maputo ) , Mozambique ; and Mombasa , Kenya . A brush with fate . In May 1967 tensions were rising in the Middle East between Israel and her Arab neighbors ; this resulted in the Six - Day War in June 1967 . The National Security Agency ( NSA ) decided to deploy a SIGINT collection ship to the area to monitor the situation . Most of the technical research ships were too far away : the and were in Southeast Asia , the and were in South America , and the was off Cuba . Choice of a ship for the operation narrowed between the " Valdez " , then headed from the eastern Mediterranean to Gibraltar , and the in port at Abidjan , Ivory Coast . The NSA selected the " Liberty " because she had superior cruising speed ( 18 knots vs . 8 knots for " Valdez " ) , because her VHF / UHF multichannel collection capability was better , and because she was , unlike the " Valdez " , at the beginning of a deployment . On 23 May 1967 the " Liberty " was diverted for duty in the eastern Mediterranean . The " Liberty " stopped at Rota on 1 June and departed the next day for the eastern Mediterranean . Eastbound " Liberty " passed westbound " Valdez " night of June 5 / 6 . June 7 Contact X ( " Valdez " was Contact A ) removed from " Liberty ' s " navigation chart . Seven days after arriving Rota , the " Liberty " was attacked by Israeli forces and suffered heavy damages , with 34 crew members killed and 171 injured ( see the USS Liberty incident ) . " Valdez " arrived in Bayonne , New Jersey in June 1967 . Final deployments . After repair and overhaul , the " Valdez " departed for her second extended tour in the African region on 18 September 1967 . She returned to the USA unexpectedly early in September 1968 for installation of TRSSCOMM ( Technical Research Ship Special COMMunications ) , a system that could relay messages directly to Washington by bouncing a microwave signal off the moon . This was not a new system ; it had already been used on the and the . This system consisted of a sixteen foot , dish shaped antenna mounted on a movable platform and capable of bouncing a 10 , 000 watt microwave signal off a particular spot on the moon and down either to the receiving station at Cheltenham , Maryland , or to one of the other Navy SIGINT ships . The TRSSCOMM had the advantage of being able to transmit large quantities of intelligence information very rapidly without giving away the ship ' s location to hostile direction finding equipment or interfering with incoming signals . But its major disadvantage is that it could only work if the moon was visible and the stabilization system worked properly . The third extended deployment commenced on 22 January 1969 when the " Valdez " transited to Africa via Recife , Brazil . The " Valdez " was ordered home later that year to prematurely end her final deployment . All the vessels in the Technical Research Fleet were inactive by 1970 . Final fate . The Maritime Administration assumed custody of the " Valdez " on 7 November 1969 . She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register , 15 August 1976 and transferred for disposal . She sold on 27 July 1977 and scrapped by Consolidated - Andy Inc . , Brownsville , Texas later that year .