USS Admiralty Islands (CVE-99)

USS Admiralty Islands, 1945
Overview
Order	1942
Keel laying	February 26, 1944
Launch	May 10, 1944
1. Period of service
Commissioning	June 13, 1944
Decommissioning	April 24, 1946
Removed from ship register	May 8, 1946
Whereabouts	scrapped
Technical specifications
displacement	7800  ts (standard) 10,400 ts (application)
length	156.2 m
width	32.9 m
Draft	6.9 m
crew	860
drive	4 piston steam engines, 9000 HP on two propellers
speed	19 kn
Range	10,200 nm at 15 kn
Armament	1 × 127 mm gun 8 × 40mm twins 20 × 20 mm MK
Planes	28

The USS Admiralty Islands (CVE-99) was an escort aircraft carrier in the United States Navy and belonged to the Casablanca class . The carrier was in service with the US Navy from June 1944 to April 1946.

history

The escort aircraft carrier was laid down as USS Chaplin Bay , Maritime Commission hull MC1136, at Kaiser Shipyards in Vancouver , Washington , on February 26, 1944 . On April 26, the carrier was renamed Admiralty Islands , after the Admiralty Islands . After the christening of the ship by Mrs. Homer Norman Wallin, the carrier was launched on May 10, 1944. It entered service on June 13 in Astoria , Oregon under the provisional command of Captain JD Earner, and the following day command of the ship was transferred to Captain MEA Gouin.

On July 2, the escort carrier left Astoria for the first test drives in Puget Sound , then he ran via San Francisco , where fuel was taken on board, to San Diego , where the Admiralty Islands arrived on July 14. After further maneuvers off the southern California coast, she was assigned to the Carrier Transport Squadron of the Pacific Fleet, with the task of transporting aircraft, supplies and personnel to the operational fleet. After a short stay in Hawaii, the porter delivered its first cargo in Majuro on August 9 and returned from there to Pearl Harbor . On August 24, the carrier arrived in San Francisco with a load of aircraft and personnel, followed by another transport trip to Finschhafen , New Guinea in September . The Admiralty Islands entered San Diego on October 7 and went to dock the following day for overhaul work that lasted through October 26. On October 29, she took a load of aircraft for New Guinea on board in Alameda , which were unloaded in Finschhafen on November 21. From there the porter continued to Manus , where he arrived two days later. She returned to San Diego on December 14th via Pearl Harbor, where the Admiralty Islands lay on December 6th and 7th. There she took a load of aircraft on board and delivered them to Hawaii on December 24th. The next day, the course was set for Guam .

The Admiralty Islands arrived in Guam on January 6, 1945, where they began pilot training. On January 10th, the course was set for Hawaii, where the propulsion system of the carrier was repaired from January 10th to 31st. On February 2, the Admiralty Islands left Pearl Harbor with 61 aircraft for the fleet off Iwo Jima . After brief stopovers in Eniwetok and Ulithi, the porter was assigned to Task Group 50.8, the logistics support fleet of Task Force 58 , on February 16 . For the remainder of February, the carrier provided replacement aircraft and pilots for the attack carriers. On March 2, he arrived in Guam, where fuel was stored and minor damage to the hull was repaired. On March 13, the Admiralty Islands ran together with Task Group 50.8 in the direction of Okinawa , where they supported the attacks against Japanese positions on the island. On April 24th it returned to Guam, two steam boilers were defective and had to be repaired.

After completion of the work on May 14th, the Admiralty Islands ran back to Okinawa. She then ran via Guam to Saipan , where she arrived on June 15 and stayed for two weeks. Then she was assigned to Task Group 30.8, which supported the attacks on the main Japanese islands. On July 20, a fire broke out on board after a landing plane crashed and a crew member was killed. The next day, the carrier was released from the 3rd US fleet and ran to Guam, where he unloaded his cargo and stashed fuel for the journey to the US west coast. On August 11th, the Admiralty Islands entered San Diego, from where they docked in San Pedro . A large part of the planned changes were canceled due to the surrender of Japan , after the repairs were completed, the porter began its first trips on September 1 as part of Operation Magic Carpet . These missions, which were under the command of the Carrier Transport Squadron of the US Pacific Fleet from September 25, lasted until decommissioning.

The Admiralty Islands was decommissioned on April 24, 1946, on May 8, 1946, her name was removed from the shipping records of the Navy and her hull was sold to the Zidell Machinery and Supply Corporation in Portland , Oregon, for scrapping.

The Admiralty Islands received three Battle Stars for their service during World War II.

Web links

Commons : USS Admiralty Islands (CVE-99)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• History of the Admiralty Islands (CVE-99) in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (English)