From 1933 to 1941, Lapwing participated in various exercises with her aircraft, helping develop American naval aviation capability and formulate the seaplane tender role for future conflicts. USS Lapwing's participation in developing the tender's mission was important enough that she was reclassified as a Small Seaplane Tender on January 22nd, 1936. USS Lapwing (AVP-1) operated primarily with seaplanes in the Panama Canal Zone, along the West Coast, and in the Caribbean Sea, the latter basing her at Trinidad in the British West Indies.
Her World War 2 service saw Lapwing assigned to the North Atlantic with Patrol Wing 3. She departed the Caribbean in February of 1942 and arrived in Narsarssuak, Greenland in May of 1942. Lapwing remained in the North Atlantic, engaging in patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) missions with her seaplanes until 1943.
She was assigned another tour in the Caribbean and arrived in Key West in June of 1943 for duty as a training ship. Operating out of the Fleet Sound School for 11 months, Lapwing's mission was to continue to develop tactics for air ASW technology. Lapwing's task force cruised to Recife, Brazil in August of 1944 looking for enemy submarines. The task force and the seaplane tender returned to Key West in early September and performed various training missions for the rest of the war. Lapwing steamed to Charleston, South Carolina on October 5th, 1945. Once there, she was officially decommissioned and struck from the naval roster on November 29th, 1945. She was sold on August 19th, 1946 to W. S. Sanders, Norfolk, Virginia by the War Shipping Administration (WSA), a World War 2 emergency war agency of the US government tasked to purchase and operate civilian shipping tonnage that was so desperately needed for the US war effort. Her ultimate fate beyond that was unknown.
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