Ager-2 and the Occurance Near Yo Do Island
Auxiliary General Environmental Research (AGER) ships were conceived as small unarmed or lightly armed ELINT/SIGINT vessels. Manned by US Navy crews, communications technicians (CT) from the Naval Security Group and civilian oceanographers they would provide an equivalent capability to Soviet trawlers. Destroyers or heavily armed combatants were dismissed for missions off the coast of Communist countries as being blatantly belligerent in nature and as such were more likely to provoke hostility than collect intelligence. Besides, larger ships were going to be more costly to convert and operate than the type the Russians were using. The United States already had a series of converted WWII Liberty ships that served as intelligence platforms. The USS Liberty AGTR-5, a member of this series, was a success at its primary intelligence mission but was large and costly to operate. A small ship that appeared to be of an nonconfrontational nature might be able to remain on station for a significant period of time, receive much less attention than a large or heavily armed unit, and cost significantly less to run. Originally the US Navy envisioned a total of 40 ships in this new AGER class. To prove the theory behind this idea one ship was selected to be converted to a new type of intelligence platform. The USS BANNER, a light auxiliary cargo (AKL) vessel was selected for refitting to an intelligence platform and rechristened USS BANNER (AGER-1). During operations in 1967 off the coasts of the Soviet Union, China and the west coast of North Korea, her intelligence gathering abilities were considered a success. Authorization was granted to convert 2 more AKL's to AGER's; the USS Pueblo, AGER-2 and the USS Palm Beach, AGER-3. The USS Pueblo would join USS Banner in the western Pacific and the USS Palm Beach would operate in the Atlantic. The SOD Hut conversions were done by LTV/Raytheon Systems.