The first USC&GS Discoverer was a survey ship that served in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1922 to 1941.
Construction and United States Navy career, 1919-1922
Discoverer was laid down as the United States Navy minesweeper USS Auk (Minesweeper No. 38) by the Todd Shipyards Corporation at New York, New York, on 20 June 1918. She was launched on either 28 September 1918 and commissioned on 31 January 1919.
Auk assisted in sweeping the North Sea Mine Barrage in 1919. She spent 1920 in ordinary at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and was redesignated AM-38 that year. She was decommissioned at Portsmouth on 28 December 1920.
United States Coast and Geodetic Survey career
While Auk lay in reserve, the Coast and Geodetic Survey found itself in urgent need of ships to replace those which for reasons of age or unsuitability for the work to be performed had been disposed of. While ships like Auk were, in general, well-adapted to the kind of work they would be performing in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, being robust, steel-hulled ships that had proved their seaworthiness while in Navy service as minesweepers, their accommodations were too small to take care of the large surveying parties that were to be embarked on board for the hydrographic and topographic work they would perform in the survey; however, their design permitted their conversion to allow the increase in accommodation necessary for survey work. Under the terms of an Executive Order of 12 October 1921, Auk and her sister ship, the minesweeper USS Osprey (AM-29) were taken to the Boston Navy Yard at Boston, Massachusetts, and transferred to the Coast and Geodetic Survey on 7 April 1922. The Survey renamed them USC&GS Discoverer and USC&GS Pioneer respectively. While in Coast and Geodetic Survey service, Discoverer, Pioneer, and survey ship USC&GS Guide—the former Navy minesweeper USS Flamingo (AM-32)—became known as the "Bird Boats" because of their original Navy names.
On 8 April 1922, Lieutenant Commander H. A. Seran, USC&GS, took charge of Discoverer and Pioneer. Discoverer, with Lieutenant Commander Seran in command, stood out of Boston on 28 April 1922 and transited the Cape Cod Canal that day. She reached the William Cramp & Sons shipyard at Philadelphia on 29 April 1922 and soon commenced a major overhaul and conversion into a survey ship. Discoverers metamorphosis was completed by early August 1922; and, on 9 August 1922, she got underway from Philadelphia for the Virginia Capes. Reaching Norfolk, Virginia, on 10 August 1922, she tarried there until heading out to sea on the evening of 1 September 1922. Giving the United States Atlantic Fleet — then on maneuvers in the Southern Drill Grounds — a wide berth, Discoverer steered south to Kingston, Jamaica, and steamed from there across the Gulf of Mexico, conducting sampling and surveying work along the way.
Transiting the Panama Canal on 8 October 1922, Discoverer then proceeded up the coast of Central America and Mexico and reached San Diego, California, shortly after midnight on 27 October 1922. Working out of San Diego, San Francisco, and Oakland, California, Discoverer frequented the waters of Southern California, engaged in coastal survey work, for the rest of 1922 and the early portion of 1923.
In 1923, Discoverer moved north to the waters of the Territory of Alaska, where she operated through the summer of 1925 except for with occasional visits to Seattle, Washington, or San Francisco for upkeep.