Project Flat Top

Project Flat Top was a United States Army project during the Vietnam War to convert USS Albemarle, a World War II-era seaplane tender, into a forward theater, offshore helicopter repair facility. Helicopters had been used during the Korean War to ferry wounded and supplies. Some US combat officers recognized the possibility of using armed helicopters to provide close air support. But other organizations and branches strenuously objected to allowing the Army to deliver ordnance via aircraft. The Army Staff in The Pentagon responded slowly to a study from the Army Aircraft Requirements Review Board chaired by Lieutenant general (LTG) Gordon B. Rogers that suggested adopting helicopters for use in a combat role. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara bypassed Secretary of the Army Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr. and directed LTG Hamilton H. Howze, the Army's first director of aviation, to conduct a review of the tactical possibilities suggested by the study. The Howze Board report received by McNamara in September 1962 proposed huge changes in Army doctrine, prescribing an airmobility doctrine integrating helicopters into combat.

With helicopters increasingly at the center of Army doctrine as a result of the Howze Board's recommendations, it became apparent that a logistical gap would arise between the operational area and repair bases in the US. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) John Sullivan, a respected Army aviator, conceived of the idea to convert a ship into a floating helicopter repair facility.^[1] Sullivan was named by General Frank Besson, commanding general of the newly formed United States Army Materiel Command (AMC), to lead the project.

After considerable research, Sullivan and his team selected the World War II Curtiss-class seaplane tender USS Albemarle (AV-5). When progress slowed for almost a year, Sullivan bypassed Army leadership and persuaded influential Congressman Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to support the project. New shops, instruments, technology, communications, and storage were added to the ship over 15 months at a cost of $25 million. Rechristened as USNS Corpus Christi Bay (T-ARVH-1), a civilian United States Merchant Marine (USMM) crew was chosen to operate the bridge, engine room, and man the ship's watches. This was a controversial move that generated concern about their placement near a combat zone and their potential treatment under the Geneva Conventions. US Army soldiers staffed the multiple repair shops that were equipped with custom facilities that could repair or fabricate parts to factory standards.

The ship offered the same echelon of depot-level service available in the U.S. at the Army Aeronautical Depot Maintenance Center in Corpus Christi, Texas while it served off the coast of South Vietnam for 6½ years. The soldiers repaired as many as 20,000 aircraft components a month and saved the military millions of dollars. When the war was drawing down, the ship left for the U.S. in late 1972. On 17 July 1975, after more than 36 years of service, the ship was scrapped.