USS Winterberry (AN-56/YN-75) was an Ailanthus-class net laying ship which served with the United States Navy in the Pacific Ocean theatre of operations during World War II.

Despite being attacked near Okinawa by enemy suicide planes, she managed to return safely home after the war with the ship bearing one battle star.

Winterberry (AN-56) -- originally projected as Tupelo (YN-75) -- was laid down on 17 September 1943 at Stockton, California, by the Pollock-Stockton Shipbuilding Company; reclassified an auxiliary net-laying ship and redesignated AN-56 on 20 January 1944; launched on 22 March 1944; and commissioned on 30 May 1944.

In November, she was definitely at Kossol Roads in the Palau group because she reported sighting a submarine at 0858 on the 19th while she was laying torpedo nets at the west entrance to the roadstead.

She indicated that the submarine submerged and surfaced three times in the space of two minutes and then moved off before auxiliary motor minesweeper USS YMS-33 belatedly got underway to investigate.

While it is conceivable that she was in the neighborhood of the Ryukyu Islands for the preliminary occupation of the roadstead at Kerama Retto, no hard evidence supports the conclusion.

Winterberry's guns combined with those of the other ships in the area to splash the kamikaze but a scant few yards short of his intended victim.

The net-layer reached her destination three days later and operated in the Volcano Islands—at Iwo Jima and at Chichi Jima—until late in October.