Bobolink, Minesweeper No. 20, was a Lapwing-class minesweeper, named for the bird. DANFS gives her 950 tons, a length of 187 feet 10 inches, a beam of 35 feet 6 inches, a draft of 9 feet 9 inches, 14 knots, a complement of 72, and two 3-inch guns. The Baltimore Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Company laid her down on 29 October 1917. She was launched on 15 June 1918, sponsored by Miss Elsie Jean Willis, and commissioned on 28 January 1919 with Lieutenant Frank Bruce in command. NavSource classifies her AM-20 on 17 July 1920.
She left Norfolk in April 1919 for Division 2 of the North Sea Minesweeping Detachment at Kirkwall. On 14 May 1919, while she was sweeping, a mine exploded close by. It did considerable damage to the stern and killed Lieutenant Bruce. NavSource records the Navy Distinguished Service Medal for him, posthumously, in 1919. Repairs at the Royal Dockyard, Devonport, took six months. She was back at Norfolk in January 1920. From 1920 to 1931 she served with the Fleet Base Force of the Scouting Fleet on the east coast and took part in fleet problems. On 3 March 1932 she reached the west coast and was based at San Diego. DANFS says she worked the western seaboard from San Francisco to San Quentin Bay, Mexico, with the Train and destroyer divisions. The spelling San Quentin Bay is the one DANFS prints. In 1935 she joined the exercises and fleet problems off Hawaii. From January to March 1939 she was in Caribbean fleet problems, and she returned to San Diego on 13 May 1939. In September 1940 she joined the Train, Base Force, at Pearl Harbor, and she stayed in Hawaiian waters until September 1942.
On 7 December 1941 she was the ready-duty ship in a nest at the westerly end of the Coal Docks. Her commanding officer, Lieutenant James Louis Foley, Naval Academy class of 1929, wrote the report on 10 December. The page as published by the Naval History and Heritage Command notes that the original misspells the ship's name Boblink, and the published text corrects it. Foley was in his cabin. At 0756 the gangway watch, Williams, J. E., seaman second class, told him of the attack. Foley saw a low plane with a red-circle insignia, ordered general quarters, and ordered live ammunition. He was senior officer present of the four minesweepers, and the others followed him. His report places Vireo and Turkey inboard and Rail outboard. Turkey and Bobolink opened fire about 0806. The officers of the deck of the other three asked about spreading out. Foley told them to tie up to the destroyer buoys by the battle rafts. Bobolink slipped the nest at 0835 and was at the first buoy at 0845. The pointers of number 1 gun, McCartney, J. W., seaman first class, and Williams, D. J., seaman first class, and most of the men on the bridge, saw a plane streaming smoke from the tail, lose altitude, and crash at or near Hickam Field. Foley wrote that there was no confirmation of which ship had brought it down, and that it was definitely the result of the firing of one of the minesweepers near the Coal Docks. He did not claim it for Bobolink.
About 0900, after a warning to beware of submarines, there was a disturbance off Waipio Point. Bobolink fired three shots at the slick and the mud. No ship was within a thousand yards. Foley believed a submerged submarine had brushed the left bank of the channel on the way out. He signaled two destroyers that were coming out, telling them to drop depth charges. The signal was apparently not seen. At noon the Commander, Base Force, ordered Bobolink and Turkey to sweep Pearl Harbor. At 1225 she moored at the Coal Docks to take a sweep wire. About 1330 the orders changed: sweep the approaches to Pearl Harbor and to Honolulu. Off the entrance, sweeping ships were already off Pearl and none were off Honolulu. At 1426 she passed a sweep wire to Turkey and swept off Honolulu. At 1549 she was ordered to Ten-Ten Dock. At 1640 she was ordered to assist Nevada, and the order was changed to California. At 1730 she moored alongside Widgeon, next to California. She rigged suction hoses and wrecking pumps. The hoses were in California at 1740, and she pumped the forward section through the night. The report records no losses and no damage, and Foley singled out no one man.
DANFS says that after the attack she served as a salvage vessel and a minesweeper. Between 20 May and 2 July 1942 she was converted to an ocean-going tug and redesignated AT-131 on 1 June 1942. She remained at Pearl Harbor until September 1942, then went to the South Pacific and worked as a tug out of Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo, and Noumea until February 1944. She reached Long Beach on 4 March 1944 for overhaul and was back at Pearl Harbor on 29 June 1944. NavSource reclassifies her as an old ocean tug, AT(O)-131, on 15 May 1944. DANFS says she served in Hawaiian waters until the fall of 1945 and then returned to the Mare Island Navy Yard, where she was decommissioned on 22 February 1945. Those two statements in the same paragraph cannot both be right. NavSource dates the decommissioning 22 February 1946 at Mare Island, and its last commanding officer's tour runs to that day. She was sold through the Maritime Commission on 5 October 1946. NavSource says the fate after the sale is unknown. She received one battle star.
A note on sources. The career follows the DANFS entry for Bobolink, the interim update by Robert J. Cressman printed with the dates 1 July 2026 and 30 January 2006. The morning of 7 December follows Foley's action report of 10 December 1941, enclosure (E) to the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, action report serial 0479 of 15 February 1942, from the Modern Military Branch at the National Archives in College Park. Turkey's report and Rail's report describe the same nest and do not agree with this one on every time or on who may claim the smoking plane. Each ship's account is left as that ship wrote it. The decommissioning year 1945 is what DANFS prints. The year 1946 is what NavSource prints, and it is the date that fits service into the fall of 1945 and the commanding-officer list. Commanding officers are that list. Foley is the same officer who later commanded the destroyer Hyman.