USS GREAT SITKIN (AE-17) was built as a C2-S-AJ1 U.S. Maritime Commission design hull by the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company at Wilmington, North Carolina in early 1945.  When accepted by the U.S. Navy she was converted to an ammunition ship at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, South Carolina.  She had a length of 459 feet, a beam of 63 feet, a speed of 16 knots, and a normal load displacement of 12,000 tons.  In accordance with Navy policy and tradition, the vessel was named "GREAT SITKIN" after a volcano in the Aleutian Islands and assigned the hull number AE-17.  
      With appropriate ceremonies, GREAT SITKIN was commissioned as a U.S. Navy Ammunition Ship on 11 August 1945,  at the Charleston Naval Shipyard, Charleston, South Carolina.  On 2 October 1945, she reported to Commander Service Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet for active duty.

      During the course of her 29 years of active service, Great Sitkin was awarded the following medals and ribbons: American Campaign Medal, WWII Victory Medal, Navy Occupation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Viet Nam Service Medal with 3 campaign stars.

   The Association, in keeping with it's Constitution and Bylaws, has obtained historical information about the ship's activities as shown on the following pages.  While not all years are covered at this time, every effort is being made to obtain information on the missing periods. 
  
    As you scroll through the history pages, you will notice that some of the "years" in the left column are in BLUE, these are hyper-links that will take you to a narrative on the events that took place during that period.  Events contained therein were extracted from the ship's Annual Command History Report (Report Symbol OPNAV 5750-1) filed by the Commanding Officers.  Copies of the original reports were provided by the Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center. We wish to thank them for their help and dedication to their job. Without it the creation of these pages would not have been possible.  Unfortunately copies of these reports are not available for all of the years the ship was in service.

    For some of the years we have been able to obtain copies of the ship's "Deck Logs".   Books for each period we have acquired are located in the Ship's Library.  Viewing these requires having Adobe Reader installed on the viewer's computer.  This is a free program.  To obtain a copy click on this link to Adobe Acrobat Reader® and follow the prompts.  Copies of the Ship's Deck Logs were purchased through the donations of the following crew members.  We wish to thank them for their generosity and dedication to preserving the history of the ship.