USS Mississinewa (AO-59)
_anchored_in_Hampton_Roads,_Virginia_(USA),_on_25_May_1944_(NH_97279).jpg) |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The USS Mississinewa (AO-59) was a T3-S2-A3 Cimarron-class supply tanker of the US Navy . The tanker entered service on March 28, 1944 and sunk by a Japanese manned torpedo on November 20, 1944.
construction
The Mississinewa was on October 5, 1943 in the Bethlehem Sparrows Point -Werft in American Sparrows Point , Maryland put on keel and put into service on March 28, 1944th The first (and only) in command was Captain Philip G. Beck. The ship was named after the American Mississinewa River in the state of Indiana .
Second World War
The Mississinewa began with her first mission on May 18, 1944. After she was subjected to final tests in the Chesapeake Bay in the United States, she went on a trip to Aruba . There she was loaded with cargo on June 23 and 24, 1944, to be steered on to Pearl Harbor , where she entered on July 10. As a member of the 10th supply squadron, she went with other ships of the unit to the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific to supply ships of the 3rd fleet with fuel . On August 25, 1944, she was on her way to Manus Island to be loaded with fuel and material and then to deliver mail to the ships of the 31st, 32nd and 38th Task Force during the occupation of Palau . When she returned to Manus Island on September 30, 1944, she was reloaded with fuel to refuel the 38th Task Force to the north as part of the retaking of the Philippines . On October 19, the Mississinewa went to its new base in Ulithi Atoll to refuel .
_20_November_1944B.jpg)
There it was loaded with around 1500 m³ of aviation fuel , 1400 m³ of diesel fuel and 14,000 m³ of heavy fuel oil on November 16, 1944 , only to set off a few days later for another supply trip. On November 20, she was still in port on Ulithi, where a violent explosion occurred on the ship at 5:47 a.m. A few seconds later, one of the tanks filled with aviation fuel ignited, causing a second explosion. The resulting fire spread towards the bow of the ship. Heavy oil was now on the entire ship, which was covered by a blanket of gasoline that acted like a wick. Due to the light wind that prevailed that day, the fire spread quickly under suitable circumstances, so that the ship was completely on fire a little later. When the flames reached the ship's ammunition store shortly afterwards, a third explosion occurred, after which almost the entire ship was enveloped in flames about 30 meters high. Several tugs made numerous and prolonged attempts to extinguish the fire until the Mississinewa slowly sank at around 9:00 a.m.
The USS Mississinewa was the first ship in the US fleet to be sunk by a manned torpedo of the Kaiten type of the Imperial Japanese Navy . 63 American sailors and the Kaiten pilot died in the attack on the Mississinewa .
During the time that the USS Mississinewa was serving as the supply tanker of the 10th supply squadron of the American Pacific Fleet, she received awards in the form of four Battle Stars .
literature
- Michael Mair: Oil, Fire and Fate: The Sinking of the USS Mississinewa AO-59 in WWII by Japan's Secret Weapon. SMJ Publishing, Platteville Wisconsin 2008, ISBN 978-0-615-21644-7 . ( Online review )
