USS Gage (APA-168) was a Haskell-classattack transport in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1947. Gage was the sole remaining example of the 117-ship Haskell-class and was scrapped in 2009.
After shakedown out of San Diego, California, Gage sailed from San Francisco 17 January 1945 for the South Pacific. Following the landing of a military civil affairs group at Kaurimarau, Russell Islands, she arrived off West Kokum Beach, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, 4 February 1945 with 298 Marines and military cargo. She became a unit of Division 34, Transport Squadron 12, and spent the ensuing weeks in amphibious warfare maneuvers in the Solomons. On 15 March 1945, the attack transport departed Guadalcanal for Ulithi, the staging base for the Okinawa invasion. From there she sailed to Hagushi Beach, Okinawa, where she joined in the initial assault 1 April 1945 conducted under cover of heavy naval gun and plane bombardment.
Gage stood out from Seattle 21 August 1945 with 1,724 Army casual replacements who disembarked at Saipan in the Marianas 5 September. Thirteen days later she departed with some 1,500 marines whom she landed late in October as part of the occupation forces at Hiro Wan, Honshū, Japan. Homeward bound, she served as the "Magic-Carpet" for 1,700 Army veterans embarked at Okinawa and Manila. She reached Portland, Oregon 14 December 1945. The attack transport made a "Magic-Carpet" voyage from San Francisco to Yokosuka and back (10 January to 25 February 1946); followed by one to Samar, P.I., and back (4 April to 10 May 1946). She again departed San Francisco 28 May 1946 to support Navy occupation forces at the Chinese ports of Qingdao and Tientsin and the Japanese ports of Yokosuka and Sasebo.
Gage departed Sasebo 26 June; embarked Army veterans in the Marianas and Hawaii; then transited the Panama Canal for Norfolk, arriving 29 July 1946.
Gage was slated to be used as a target in SINKEX 2004. This was cancelled pending historical review, and she remained in the James River Reserve Fleet. There was an effort underway to preserve Gage, the last ship remaining in the Haskell-class configuration, as a museum ship. The 29 February 2008 MARAD Inventory listed Gage with the status "Historic Hold" (previously she was listed for "Disposal"). The 30 April 2009 Inventory had her back in "Disposal" status. Gage left the James River Reserve Fleet on 23 July 2009, and was towed to Brownsville, Texas, where she was scrapped by ESCO Marine, Inc. Some items from the ship were salvaged to be used in the restoration of USSTexas(BB-35), a museum ship moored near Houston, Texas and Fletcher class destroyer USSKidd(DD-661), a museum ship moored on the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Other items were acquired from the Gage several years prior to her scrapping for use on the Cannon-class destroyer escort USSSlater(DE-766), a museum ship moored in Albany, New York along with a plaque honoring Gage in the communications room presented by the USS Gage (APA-168) Association. In addition to the radios and other communications equipment on Slater, Gage was a source for many historical ship museums with which to backdate ships to WWII era design. In doing so, Gage herself had given up so much of her own equipment that by the time she was put on historical hold, she was stripped of so much equipment that it was hard to justify the expense of turning her into a museum ship. Her legacy stands not so much as a warship, but as a donor to help preserve other ships to reflect a time in which those ships would otherwise have been preserved in a more modern appearance from the mid-1940s WWII timeframe due to a lack of available obsolete equipment.[citation needed]
Awards
Gage received one battle star for World War II service.
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