and a full load of fuel without exceeding maximum draft limits and modernization would only add to that limitation by adding weight. Service history 1956–1961 The cable repair ship operated in the Atlantic through 1956. In February 1957, she reported to the Pacific Fleet and, until the fall of 1958, operated out of San Francisco repairing and laying cables. She returned to the Atlantic in September 1958 and served there until the summer of 1961, when she was temporarily assigned to the Pacific again. The cable repair ship returned to operations in the Atlantic in December. 1962–1969 Following an overhaul at Boston in the spring of 1962, Thor deployed to the Pacific once more for cable repair operations in the northern reaches of that ocean. In October, she returned to the eastern side of the Isthmus of Panama and busied herself with cable repair duties and oceanographic projects in the Caribbean. For the next five and one-half years, Thor continued to repair and lay cables in the western Atlantic and in the West Indies. Occasionally, she also participated in more oceanographic projects. During that half decade, she ranged as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as the Caribbean. Periodically, she also conducted operations in the Gulf of Mexico. On 20 April 1968, the ship departed Norfolk and steamed, via the Panama Canal and San Diego, for the Central Pacific. She conducted special operations in the vicinity of Midway Island and returned to Hawaii on 16 June for several days before departing Pearl Harbor on the 24th for the Marianas. She reached Guam on 5 July and spent the next month repairing cable around that island. She returned to Pearl Harbor on 13 August and operated in the Hawaiian Islands until she headed back toward the mainland on 7 November. Following a brief stop at Long Beach, California, Thor returned to Norfolk on 6 December. Over the next four years, Thor deployed to the Pacific three times. In August 1969, after seven months of operations along the east coast, she headed, via the Panama Canal and San Diego, to Pearl Harbor. Through November, she conducted operations near Midway Island and then returned to the Atlantic via Pearl Harbor, Long Beach, and the Panama Canal. 1970–1974 In February 1970, she entered the Bethlehem Steel Shipyard in Boston to begin a year-long overhaul and repair period. In mid-February 1971, the