USS Jamestown (AGTR-3/AG-166) was an Oxford-class technical research ship (a Cold War spy ship) acquired by the U.S. Navy for the task of "conducting research in the reception of electromagnetic propagations" (SIGINT). Jamestown's civilian life The third ship to be named Jamestown by the Navy, AG-166, a converted Liberty ship, was launched as J. Howland Gardner under Maritime Commission contract by New England Shipbuilding Corp., South Portland, Maine, 10 July 1945; and sponsored by Mrs. George W. Elkins of Newport, Rhode Island. The Liberty ship was completed on 14 August 1945, and chartered under general agency agreement by Waterman Steamship Co. until 17 June 1946, when she went into the Maritime Reserve Fleet. She was chartered by United States Navigation Company, 3 February 1947, and by South Atlantic Steamship Lines, 20 October 1948. Acquired by the Navy as a technical research ship J. Howland Gardner returned to Maritime Reserve Fleet at Beaumont, Texas. She was acquired there by the Navy 10 August 1962: renamed Jamestown and designated AG-166 on 6 March 1963; and commissioned 13 December at Norfolk Navy Yard. The technical research ship was assigned to Service Squadron 8, Service Force, Atlantic Fleet, with Norfolk, Virginia, her home port. Her mission is "to conduct technical research operations in support of U.S. Navy electronic research projects, which include electromagnetic propagation studies and advanced communications systems such as satellite communications." In actuality, from 1965 both the Jamestown and the had begun to undertake Signals Intelligence tasks in the waters off South Vietnam following a United States Intelligence Board decision in April, 1965. The Oxford arriving in May, 1965 and the Jamestown in December. Until they were decommissioned in December, 1969, these ships continued to act in that capacity, supplementing land based radio-intelligence monitoring of North and South Vietnamese and Cambodian VHF and HF communication nets. It can be extrapolated that communications from Thailand, Laos and China were also monitored where possible. This information was recently released under the Freedom of Information Act in the previously Top Secret NSA book "Cryptologic History Series, Southeast Asia, Focus on Cambodia", January 1974 at Part One, page 59. Preparing to evacuate personnel at Guantanamo After fitting out at Norfolk, Jamestown departed 20 January 1964 for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where she underwent 2 weeks of intensive shakedown training. She was there when Cuban Fidel Castro shut off all fresh water to that base, and stood by