USS Dobbin
USS Dobbin (AD-3) was a United States Navy destroyer tender named after James Cochrane Dobbin, who served as Secretary of the Navy in the 1850s. She was built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, launched on May 5, 1921, and commissioned on July 23, 1924. For 22 years she supported destroyer squadrons with repairs, supplies, and upkeep, earning one battle star for her World War II service.
Dobbin began her career moving between the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. In early 1925 she sailed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, via Newport and Hampton Roads, loaded equipment for her tender duties, and then operated from San Diego and Pearl Harbor. She spent several years tending destroyers and conducting radio experiments along the U.S. coasts and in the Pacific.
She was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, when Japan attacked. Dobbin was moored near Ford Island and helped rescue sailors from damaged ships, towing wounded men ashore and taking aboard survivors from other ships as she left the harbor.
After serving in the Hawaiian area, she went to Australia in 1942, and later moved to locations around New Guinea and Milne Bay, returning to the Pacific theater through 1945. Dobbin then served at Subic Bay in the Philippines before heading back to the United States in late 1945.
Dobbin was decommissioned on September 27, 1946, and transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal in December of that year. She was sold for scrapping in May 1950.
A piece of Dobbin’s legacy lives on in Cornelius, Oregon. The ship’s mast was salvaged and given to the local fire department, which displayed it with a siren beginning in 1953. The mast and siren were removed in 2017, but preservation efforts by the Cornelius Historical Society continue to remember the ship’s history.
Dobbin’s service and sacrifice earned her a place in naval history with one battle star.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:33 (CET).