USS Vesuvius (AE-15)

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The USS Vesuvius (AE-15) off Hawaii, July 1963
The USS Vesuvius (AE-15) off Hawaii, July 1963
Overview
Launch May 26, 1944
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning January 16, 1945
Decommissioning August 14, 1973
Whereabouts Wrecked in 1974
Technical specifications
displacement

7,800 tons empty weight

length

140 meters

width

19.2 meters

Draft

8.6 meters

crew

267 officers and sailors

drive

1 gear turbine
1 screw shaft ; 6,000 hp

speed

16 knots

Armament

4 × 3-inch / 50- caliber guns

The USS Vesuvius (AE-15) was a munitions ship commissioned by the United States Navy in January 1945 . It belonged to a series of eight units known as the Mount Hood class and served in World War II , the Korean War and the Vietnam War . After almost thirty years of service, the award-winning ship was decommissioned in 1973 and was scrapped the following year.

history

Emergence

Insignia of the USS Vesuvius

The Vesuvius was launched on May 26, 1944 in the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company's shipyard in Wilmington . The commissioning took place on January 16, 1945 under Commander Flavius ​​J. George. The ship is named after Vesuvius . Previously, three units of the United States Navy had already been named Vesuvius , which was no longer given after 1973.

The Vesuvius belonged to the Mount Hood class consisting of eight ships , the eponymous type ship USS Mount Hood (AE-11) of which gained fame after its explosion in November 1944. After its delivery to the United States Navy, the Vesuvius set off for test drives to Brooklyn . After further test drives with a full crew off Hampton Roads , the ship set off for its first mission on February 17, 1945.

Second World War

On this first mission, the Vesuvius transported ammunition from Naval Weapons Station Earle in New Jersey to Ulithi , where it arrived on April 5, 1945. After reloading, the ship ran to Okinawa on April 10 and became part of Service Squadron 6 to supply the US warships there with ammunition.

In July 1945 the Vesuvius belonged to the United States Third Fleet for supply during attacks off Honshu . On August 2nd, she was relocated to the Leyte Gulf . There the ship received the message about the surrender of Japan on August 15. It remained in the Leyte Gulf until October 28, when it returned to the United States.

After unloading the remaining cargo and on-board ammunition, the Vesuvius arrived on February 7, 1946 for deactivation in Orange (Texas) . There she was officially transferred to the reserve fleet on August 20, 1946 .

Korean War

The USS Vesuvius in the San Francisco Naval Shipyard, March 1953

After the outbreak of the Korean War, the Vesuvius was reactivated on November 15, 1951 after five years of berth and, after modernization work, including test drives, set out for San Diego on January 7, 1952 .

On March 22, 1952, the ship ran out to Sasebo and supplied from there the units of Task Force 77 off the Korean east coast. The mission lasted until December 1st.

As part of the Pacific Fleet

In the following years the Vesuvius was on a total of eleven missions in the western Pacific to supply the United States Seventh Fleet. In addition to these missions, the ship completed visits to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, among others . In December 1963, for example, it became the first US ship since the end of the war to dock in the port of Komatsushima .

Vietnam War

On February 28, 1965, the Vesuvius arrived in Subic Bay for her first mission in Vietnam . From there she supplied ships throughout the South China Sea . With the exception of a one-week stay in Hong Kong in July 1965, the supplier remained in active service without interruption before returning to the United States on November 28. A total of 182 US ships were supplied by Vesuvius during this period .

After an overhaul in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard , a more than 60 centimeter (26 inch) long crack in the hull of the loaded ship was discovered on March 5, 1966 during a training mission on the way to San Diego. This made it impossible to continue the journey. The explosive cargo had to be laboriously distributed to other ammunition ships, which took a total of 21 days. On April 28, the Vesuvius met Steel at the Bethlehem shipyard , where repairs were being carried out.

Further missions in the Subic Bay to supply the US warships off Vietnam took place from February to March 1968, from July 1968 to February 1969, from January to August 1971 and from February 1972 to March 1973. The rest of the service time the Vesuvius spent with training missions and visits to different ports. In the meantime, it has also been used to transport conventional freight and mail, as well as to transport passengers. In 1969 and 1970, the ship was also in the Gulf of Tonkin for supply and thus in the immediate vicinity of the Vietnamese coast.

Retirement and scrapping

On March 3, 1973, the Vesuvius returned from her last active mission, during which she transferred a total of 35,000 tons of ammunition to other US ships. An overhaul of the ship planned from April to July was discarded, instead the United States Navy decided to retire the 28-year-old veteran. On August 14, 1973, it was officially decommissioned and deleted from the Naval Vessel Register .

After the Vesuvius served as a training target for other ships for some time, she was sold to San Francisco for demolition in May 1974 .

Awards

The Vesuvius took in her 28 years of service at several military deployments in part and received into account the following awards:

Web links

Commons : USS Vesuvius (AE-15)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Silverstone: The Navy of the Nuclear Age, 1947-2007 . Routledge , Abingdon 2011, ISBN 978-1-135-86466-8 , p. 195.
  2. ↑ USS Vesuvius (SE-15) . in: Translog . Volume 4, Issue 10, Military Traffic Management Command, 1973, page 15.
  3. ↑ Longest Deployment? in: All Hands . Volume 61, Issue 805, Bureau of Naval Personnel, 1984, Page 48.
  4. ^ Gary P. Priolo: USS Vesuvius (AE-15). In: NavSource Online. September 14, 2018, accessed March 10, 2020 .