High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USS Chickadee (AM-59) was an Auk-class minesweeper of the United States Navy, named after the Chickadee, a family of small passerine birds which appear in North America and Africa. Chickadee was launched on 20 July 1942 at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company in Bay City, Michigan; sponsored by Mrs. G. B. Coale. She was commissioned on 9 November 1942, with Lieutenant Commander G. B. Coale, USNR, in command and reported to the Atlantic Fleet.