USS Gilbert Islands

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other ships with the same name, see USS Annapolis.

USS Gilbert Islands
USS Gilbert Islands in 1945
History
United States
NameGilbert Islands
NamesakeGilbert Islands campaign
BuilderTodd Pacific Shipyards
Laid down29 November 1943
Launched20 July 1944
Commissioned5 February 1945
Decommissioned15 January 1955
StrickenJune 1961
Recommissioned7 March 1964
RenamedUSS Annapolis, 22 June 1963
Stricken15 October 1976
FateSold for scrapping 1 November 1979
General characteristics
Class and typeCommencement Bay-class escort carrier
Displacement21,397 long tons (21,740 t)
Length557 ft 1 in (169.80 m) loa
Beam75 ft (23 m)
Draft32 ft (9.8 m)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Complement1,066
Armament
Aircraft carried33
Aviation facilities2 × aircraft catapults

USS Gilbert Islands (CVE-107) (ex-St. Andrews Bay) was a Commencement Bay-class escort carrier of the United States Navy.

She was launched on 20 July 1944 by the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington. She was sponsored by Mrs. Edwin D. McMorries, wife of Captain Edwin D. McMorries, Surgeon at the Naval Hospital at Puget Sound Naval Yard, and commissioned on 5 February 1945.

She was reclassified as AGMR-1 on 1 June 1963, renamed USS Annapolis on 22 June 1963 and finally recommissioned on 7 March 1964.

Design[edit]

Main article: Commencement Bay-class escort carrier

In 1941, as United States participation in World War II became increasingly likely, the US Navy embarked on a construction program for escort carriers, which were converted from transport ships of various types. Many of the escort carrier types were converted from C3-type transports, but the Sangamon-class escort carriers were instead rebuilt oil tankers. These proved to be very successful ships, and the Commencement Bay class, authorized for Fiscal Year 1944, were an improved version of the Sangamon design. The new ships were faster, had improved aviation facilities, and had better internal compartmentation.[1] They proved to be the most successful of the escort carriers, and the only class to be retained in active service after the war, since they were large enough to operate newer aircraft.[2]

Gilbert Islands was 557 ft 1 in (169.80 m) long overall, with a beam of 75 ft (23 m) at the waterline, which extended to 105 ft 2 in (32.05 m) at maximum. She displaced 21,397 long tons (21,740 t) at full load, of which 12,876 long tons (13,083 t) could be fuel oil (though some of her storage tanks were converted to permanently store seawater for ballast), and at full load she had a draft of 27 ft 11 in (8.51 m). The ship's superstructure consisted of a small island. She had a complement of 1,066 officers and enlisted men.[3]

The ship was powered by two Allis-Chalmers geared steam turbines, each driving one screw propeller, using steam provided by four Combustion Engineering-manufactured water-tube boilers. The propulsion system was rated to produce a total of 16,000 shp (12,000 kW) for a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Given the very large storage capacity for oil, the ships of the Commencement Bay class could steam for some 23,900 nautical miles (44,300 km; 27,500 mi) at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph).[3]

Her defensive anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 5 in (127 mm) dual-purpose guns in single mounts, thirty-six 40 mm (2 in) Bofors guns, and twenty 20 mm (1 in) Oerlikon light AA cannons. The Bofors guns were placed in three quadruple and twelve twin mounts, while the Oerlikon guns were all mounted individually. She carried 33 planes, which could be launched from two aircraft catapults. Two elevators transferred aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck.[3]

Service history[edit]

Construction and World War II[edit]

The first fifteen ships of the Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944.[2] The ship was originally laid down under the name St. Andrews Bay at the Todd-Pacific Shipyards in Tacoma, Washington, on 29 November 1943. During construction, she was renamed Gilbert Islands after the Gilbert Islands campaign, which culminated in the bloody Battle of Tarawa the same month that work began on the ship. The ship was launched on 20 July 1944 and was commissioned on 5 February 1945. Final fitting out work was then completed, and on 20 February, she got underway for San Diego, California. While en route, a Navy blimp spotted a stray naval mine and requested that Gilbert Islands destroy it with her anti-aircraft guns; her inexperienced gunners expended nearly 850 rounds in total from her 20- and 40 mm guns before they destroyed the mine.[4][5]

The ship then stopped in Alameda, California, to refuel before arriving in San Diego. There, she loaded ammunition and took on her complement of aviators from Marine Air Group 2, which comprised the fighter squadron VMF-512 and the torpedo squadron VMB-143. The former consisted of eighteen Vought F4U Corsairs and two Grumman F6F Hellcats, and the latter was equipped with twelve Grumman TBM Avengers. On 12 April, Gilbert Islands left San Diego, bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for a week of combat training exercises. On 2 May, she left Hawaii for the western Pacific, where she joined the main American fleet waging the war against Japanese forces. She arrived in Ulithi in the Caroline Islands on 14 May; her escorting destroyers—Caperton, Cogswell, and Ingersoll—repeatedly reported what proved to be likely false submarine contacts on the voyage.[5]

Battle of Okinawa[edit]

F4U-1D Corsair of VMF-512 on USS Gilbert Islands in 1945
Main article: Battle of Okinawa

On 17 May, the ship sortied for the Ryukyu Islands to join the fleet, then in the midst of the Battle of Okinawa. She arrived there and joined Task Unit 52.1.1. on 21 May. Gilbert Islands spent the following three days contributing her fighters to the combat air patrol, while her TBMs were employed on anti-submarine patrols. As the pilots got acclimated to combat missions, they began to be used to escort aerial attacks and performing strikes on Japanese positions on the island. Over the course of the rest of the month, her aircraft attacked numerous defensive positions, particularly around Shuri Castle in southern Okinawa, as the marines fought their way across the island. One of her aircraft shot down a Mitsubishi Ki-46 reconnaissance aircraft, which proved to be the only aerial victory any of the ship's pilots claimed during the war. During these operations, she lost only a single Corsair, which crashed after the pilot turned too low to the water.[5]

On 1 June, Gilbert Islands was transferred to Task Unit 32.1.3, and she spent the next two weeks carrying out repeated, heavy strikes on the nearby Sakishima Islands—particularly Ishigaki Island, Irabu Island, and Miyako-jima—in an attempt to neutralize airfields there to prevent the Japanese from intervening in the fighting on Okinawa. In addition, the aviators attacked other critical infrastructure, such as radio and radar stations, harbor facilities, barracks, and villages. During these raids, two aircraft were shot down and a further two were badly damaged and forced to ditch at sea near Gilbert Islands. In total, five men were killed in the attacks.[5]

Later operations[edit]

On 16 June, Gilbert Islands left the Okinawa area, bound for San Pedro Bay in the Philippines for a period of rest and replenishment. Over the course of the following five days, the ship's crew loaded fuel, munitions for her aircraft, other ammunition, and other supplies. They also made repairs to the ship's machinery, necessitated by heavy use in the fighting off Okinawa over the past month. On 26 June, she sortied in company with the escort carriers Suwanee and Block Island to raid Japanese positions in the occupied Dutch East Indies. Their attacks began on 30 June, and were coordinated to support the impending Australian invasion at Balikpapan. By 4 July, the Australians had secured the area, but in the course of the fighting, one of Gilbert Islands' Hellcats was shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. The carriers then left for the Philippines, arriving back in San Pedro Bay on 6 July.[5]

Gilbert Island remained in San Pedro Bay for almost the rest of the month to rest her crew. On 29 July, she got underway again to return to operations with the main fleet, which had shifted from Okinawa to the Japan campaign. Gilbert Island was assigned to cover the fleet's logistics train that kept the rest of Third Fleet in operations off the coast of Japan. From 10 to 12 August, she and several other vessels had to withdraw temporarily to avoid a typhoon that was passing through the area. On 15 August, she joined Task Group 30.8, and that morning Japan announced it would surrender, ending the fighting. The ship was detached from TG 30.8 on 2 September, the day Japan formally surrendered, and Gilbert Islands thereafter returned to Okinawa. She stayed there for about six weeks before departing for Formosa, where she covered elements of the Chinese Nationalist Army's 70th Army as they landed on the island at Keelung to retake control from the defeated Japanese. Gilbert Islands then sailed for Saipan in the Mariana Islands to embark passengers returning to the United States, before continuing on to Pearl Harbor and ultimately San Diego, arriving there on 4 December.[5]

Atlantic Fleet operations[edit]

On 21 January 1946, Gilbert Islands departed San Diego, having been ordered to move to the Atlantic Fleet. She arrived in her new home port, Norfolk, Virginia, on 7 February. She was decommissioned there on 21 May and allocated to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. In November 1949, she was towed to the Inactive Ship Facility in Philadelphia.[5]

Gilbert Islands recommissioned on 7 September 1951 and put in at Boston on 25 November for overhaul. She joined the Atlantic Fleet on 1 August 1952, sailed 8 days later with a cargo of jets for Yokohama, Japan, arriving 18 September, and returned to her homeport of Quonset Point, Rhode Island on 22 October. She sailed on 5 January 1953 for the Caribbean to conduct training exercises off Cuba and returned to New England waters to continue these duties through the summer and fall of the year. Following a cruise to Halifax, Nova Scotia and overhaul at Boston, the escort carrier stood out on 5 January 1954 for a Mediterranean cruise, returning to Quonset Point on 12 March 1954 for reserve training and other exercises. She became the first of her class to have jets make touch-and-go landings on the flight deck while she had no way on, a dangerous experiment successfully conducted on 9 June 1954. She left Rhode Island on 25 June for Boston and decommissioned there on 15 January 1955.

As Annapolis[edit]

Reclassified AKV-39 on 7 May 1959, Gilbert Islands remained in reserve until her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in June 1961. She was reclassified AGMR-1 on 1 June 1963 and renamed USS Annapolis (AGMR-1) on 22 June 1963. Annapolis recommissioned on 7 March 1964, Captain John J. Rowan in command. As the Navy's first major communication relay ship, Annapolis was busy with acceptance trials for the rest of the year. In the fall, she handled communications during Operations Teamwork and Steel Pike before final acceptance into the fleet on 16 December.

Vietnam[edit]

After operations out of Norfolk for the first half of 1965, Annapolis was assigned Long Beach, California as home port on 28 June 1965. In September, she was sent to Vietnam to assist communications between naval units. In 1966, the first ship-to-shore satellite radio message ever transmitted and received was between Annapolis in the South China Sea to Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Pearl Harbor. With the exception of periodic visits to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines for upkeep and training, she continued this important service into 1967, assuring a smooth and steady flow of information and orders. Annapolis was decommissioned 20 December 1969 at Norfolk, Virginia and was placed in the Pacific Reserve Fleet before being towed to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where she was placed in mothballs. The ship was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register 15 October 1976 and sold for scrap 1 November 1979.

Annapolis earned seven campaign stars for Vietnam War service.

Gallery[edit]

  • USS Gilbert Islands Lifecycle
  • USS Lee Fox (APD-45) after colliding with USS Gilbert Islands in 1945.
    USS Lee Fox (APD-45) after colliding with USS Gilbert Islands in 1945.
  • USS Gilbert Islands moored off New York City on 10 November 1953.
    USS Gilbert Islands moored off New York City on 10 November 1953.
  • Sikorsky HO4S of HS-3 aboard USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.
    Sikorsky HO4S of HS-3 aboard USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.
  • Bow view of USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.
    Bow view of USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.
  • USS Gilbert Islands and USS Hailey (DD-556) underway at sea in 1954.
    USS Gilbert Islands and USS Hailey (DD-556) underway at sea in 1954.
  • Grumman AF-2S of VS-36 is launched from USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.
    Grumman AF-2S of VS-36 is launched from USS Gilbert Islands in 1954.

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Friedman 1986, pp. 107–111.
  2. ^ a b Friedman 1983, p. 199.
  3. ^ a b c Friedman 1986, p. 111.
  4. ^ Silverstone, p. 27.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g DANFS Gilbert Islands.

References[edit]

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

  • "Annapolis III (AGMR-1)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. 25 October 2017. Retrieved 12 May 2024.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  • Friedman, Norman (1986). "United States of America". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 105–133. ISBN 978-0-85177-245-5.
  • Friedman, Norman (1983). U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-739-5.
  • "Gilbert Islands (CVE-107)". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Navy Department, Naval History and Heritage Command. 20 June 2023. Retrieved 27 April 2024.Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  • Silverstone, Paul H. (2012). The Navy of World War II, 1922–1947. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-86472-9.

External links[edit]

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Gilbert_Islands&oldid=1223535269"