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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Kite (AMS-22, later MSC(O)-22), 1944-1956, originally named YMS-374

USS YMS-374, a 270-ton auxiliary motor minesweeper, was built at Orange, Texas. Commissioned in May 1944, she was stationed along the U.S. East Coast until departing for the Pacific at the end of September 1944. She took part in the Iwo Jima invasion the following February and was then employed in the Marianas area until the end of World War II. Later in 1945, she supported the occupation of Korea and Japan. In February 1947, after a year of operations off the California coast, YMS-374 was redesignated a motor minesweeper (AMS), renamed Kite (AMS-22) and decommissioned.

Kite recommissioned in May 1949 and was sent to the Western Pacific later that year. During the first months of the Korean war, she was active off Pusan and participated in the Inchon and Wonsan operations. Kite continued her minesweeping and patrol duties in Korean and Japanese waters to the end of the war and into the middle of the decade. Redesignated MSC(O)-22 in February 1955, she was transferred to the Republic of Korea in 1956. Renamed Kim Po during her more than twenty years of Korean Navy service, she was discarded in 1977.

This page features views of USS YMS-374 and USS Kite (AMS-22).

If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 84984

USS YMS-374


In San Francisco Bay, California, shortly after the end of World War II, circa late 1945 or early 1946.
This ship later became USS Kite (AMS-22).

Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1976.

Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 71KB; 740 x 480 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-632291

USS Laertes (AR-20)


At Sasebo, Japan, with nine minesweepers and a harbor tug alongside. Original photo is dated 8 October 1952.
Ships nested to left of Laertes are (from left):
USS Impeccable (AM-320);
USS Gladiator (AM-319);
USS Shoveler (AM-382);
USS Defense (AM-317) and
USS Devastator (AM-318).
Those nested to right are (from left):
USS Condor (AMS-5);
USS Kite (AMS-22);
USS Curlew (AMS-8);
USS Chatterer (AMS-40) and
Wallacut (YTB-420).

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 68KB; 740 x 605 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 80-G-422081

Mine Division Thirty-One


Commanding Officers in conference off Korea, 26 October 1950. Probably taken in the wardroom of USS Incredible (AM-249), off Wonsan.
Those present are identified in Photo # 80-G-422081 (Complete Caption).

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 111KB; 740 x 620 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold at least one other view of USS Kite. The following list features that image:

The image listed below is NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions.".


  • Photo #: USN 1045937
    USS Kite (AMS-22) underway circa 1949-55.
    Port side surface view. This photograph was received in December 1959.


    Reproductions of this image should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The image listed in this box is NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain it using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions.".


  • If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


    Return to Naval Historical Center home page.

    31 August 1999