Ship / Subject: USS Dobbin (AD-11) – Destroyer Tender (Famous Pearl Harbor Attack Survivor).
Commemorated Event: Pre-WWII Pacific Fleet Operations / Port of Call.
Date of Postmark: August 5, 1940.
Postmark Cancellation: Excellent, clean circular U.S.S. DOBBIN postal hand-cancel dated AUG 5 1940 A.M. with custom typed text reading "PEARL / HARBOR, T.H." neatly formatted between the duplex killer bars.
Cachet Maker: Uncacheted / Standard Type (Slogan Cancel Focus).
Cachet Design: Clean, uncacheted cover. The focus of this historic piece is the crisp, highly desirable location cancel placing the ship at Pearl Harbor, Territorial Hawaii, over a year before the United States officially entered the war.
Franking: Features a 1½-Cent brown United States postage stamp (Scott #810). Issued on August 18, 1938, as part of the prominent Presidential Series (Prexies), it honors the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce. The stamp is securely tied to the envelope by the ship’s killer bars.
Addressee: Type-written address to mid-century naval cover collector Desmond D. Jagyi at 254 Orland Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
History: The USS Dobbin (AD-11) played a critical, frontline role in the Pacific Theater. As a destroyer tender, her primary mission was to act as a mobile repair base and supply hub keeping the fleet's hard-hitting destroyers in fighting shape. In 1940, the Dobbin was sent to Pearl Harbor to bolster naval readiness as war clouds gathered. On the morning of December 7, 1941, she was moored northeast of Ford Island with five destroyers alongside her when Japanese forces struck. The Dobbin's gun crews fought back fiercely, firing everything from small arms to anti-aircraft guns. Though she took damage from shrapnel and near-miss bomb blasts, her crew kept her operational. She spent the rest of WWII moving across the South Pacific, providing vital, heavy-repair support during major campaigns including the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, and the invasion of the Philippines.