History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | USS Napa |
Laid down | 5 March 1919 |
Launched | 24 July 1919 |
Commissioned | 5 December 1919 |
Decommissioned | 7 June 1929 |
Recommissioned | 15 August 1939 |
Honors and awards | 1 battle star (World War II) |
Fate | Scuttled by her crew off Corregidor Island, Philippine Islands, 9 April 1942 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Bagaduce-class fleet tug |
Displacement | 845 long tons (859 t) |
Length | 156 ft 8 in (47.75 m) |
Beam | 30 ft (9.1 m) |
Draft | 14 ft 7 in (4.45 m) |
Propulsion | Diesel engine, single propeller |
Speed | 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) |
Complement | 44 officers and enlisted |
Armament |
|
USS Napa (AT-32), originally Yucca, was a Bagaduce-class fleet tug of the United States Navy. The ship was laid down as Napa on 5 March 1919, at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Washington; launched on 24 July 1919; and commissioned on 5 December 1919.
Following shakedown and an abbreviated tour on the West Coast, the oceangoing tug sailed to Guam, where she served as a station ship from June 1919 until the spring of 1929. She then steamed to the Philippines, where she decommissioned on 7 June 1929, and joined the Inactive Fleet, berthed at Olongapo.
Ordered reactivated as war in Asia loomed closer, Napa recommissioned at Cavite on 15 August 1939, joined the Asiatic Fleet and for the next two years performed the services demanded of her type.
In late 1941, when the possibility of war became a probability for the near future, the under-shipped and undermanned fleet assigned to defend and support the Philippines began to improve its defenses. Napa, under the command of Lt. Lieutenant Minter Dial [1] (USNA, 1932), [2] was assigned to net laying and maintenance activities in Mariveles and Manila Bays. Without previous training or experience and without the proper equipment, the crew of 40 men (down from the 60 men the ship was originally designed to hold in active duty), including 8 Filipinos, on the Napa, aided by 16th Naval District service craft, and, at times, by various available minesweepers, gunboats, and Army craft, improvised with what they had.
Between 8 October and 8 December they worked to install anti-torpedo nets across the entrance to Mariveles Bay. Continuing on after losing what little remained of their equipment during the Japanese air raid on Cavite on 10 December, they kept up the work, completing 95% of the job by 14 December when they were ordered to cease operations. On 17 and 18 December, they moved two unsunk sections of the net to Manila, and then, on 19 December, reported for duty under Commander, Inshore Patrol, 16th Naval District. From that time until 9 April 1942, Napa, operating from Mariveles, performed various duties which included net tending, salvage, towing and patrol assignments in the Bataan Manila Bay area. Having re-equipped the gun deck with a 50-caliber Lewis machine gun mounted between the two 3-inch guns, the Napa was intermittently involved in direct enemy combat and, according to Chief Petty Office William "Gunner" Wells (Retired Commander), had ten confirmed kills and four probables to its credit.
Napa was responsible for laying down 13,000 mines during its activity in the Philippines. The Napa was the final US ship in Cavite Bay to pick up fuel and, as a result, was the last ship to be operational. It had no reported casualties from Japanese air attacks. Dial would later be awarded the Navy Cross for these activities.
On 18 March 1942 Ensign Perroneau B. Wingo was put in charge of the Napa, while Lt. Dial was appointed Secretary to Captain Kenneth Hoeffel, the senior naval officer present on Corregidor.
On 8 April the decision was made to evacuate Bataan. At about 0130 on 8 April, the sinking of Napa was ordered. Most of the crew, with provisions, personal belongings and small arms, were transported via small boats to Corregidor Island. Napa was then towed 500 yards out from the beach. The skeleton crew opened the magazine flood valves and made three openings through the hull in the fire and engine room. At 0500 Napa was abandoned. The CO, Ensign P. B. Wingo, and the remaining crew members proceeded to Corregidor. From that island they watched their ship remain afloat throughout the day and then, after nightfall, sink into the bay. Ensign Peronneau Wingo was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions between 18 March 1942 and 9 April 1942.
The crew of the Napa then joined the crews of other similarly fated ships. Taking up small arms, they were incorporated into the 4th Marine Regiment, in which they helped man the beach defenses until Corregidor fell on 6 May 1942. Some died on Corregidor and others died in Japanese captivity, including P.B. Wingo, and former captain Minter Dial. Napa was awarded one battle star for her service in World War II.
Corregidor is an island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in the southwestern part of Luzon in the Philippines, and is considered part of Cavite City and thus the province of Cavite. It is located 48 kilometres (30 mi) west of Manila, the nation's largest city and one of its most important seaports for centuries since the Spanish colonial period. Due to its strategic location, Corregidor has historically been fortified with coastal artillery batteries to defend the entrance of Manila Bay and Manila itself from attacks by enemy warships.
The Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays were a United States Army Coast Artillery Corps harbor defense command, part of the Philippine Department of the United States Army from circa 1910 through early World War II. The command primarily consisted of four forts on islands at the entrance to Manila Bay and one fort on an island in Subic Bay.
Fort Mills was the location of US Major General George F. Moore's headquarters for the Philippine Department's Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays in early World War II, and was the largest seacoast fort in the Philippines. Most of this Coast Artillery Corps fort was built 1904–1910 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Taft program of seacoast defense. The fort was named for Brigadier General Samuel Meyers Mills Jr., Chief of Artillery 1905–1906. It was the primary location of the Battle of Corregidor in the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941–42, and of the recapture of Corregidor in February 1945, both in World War II.
The United States Asiatic Fleet was a fleet of the United States Navy during much of the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, the fleet patrolled the Philippine Islands. Much of the fleet was destroyed by the Japanese by February 1942, after which it was dissolved, and the remnants incorporated into the naval component of the South West Pacific Area command, which eventually became the Seventh Fleet.
Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Three was a United States Navy squadron based at Cavite, Philippines, from September 1941 to December 1941. It was commanded by Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley and made up of six motor torpedo boats: PT-31, PT-32, PT-33, PT-34, PT-35, and PT-41, the last as the squadron flagship. The other six boats of the squadron remained at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and were there when war broke out, eventually being shipped to the Solomons.
USS Canopus (ID-4352-A/AS-9) was a submarine tender in the United States Navy, named for the star Canopus.
USS Tanager (AM-5) was an Lapwing-class minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.
The first USS Pigeon (AM-47/ASR-6) was a Lapwing-class minesweeper of the United States Navy. She was later converted to a submarine rescue ship. She was named for the avian ambassador, the pigeon.
Lanikai, was a wooden hulled schooner-rigged diesel powered yacht in service with the United States Navy during both World War I and World War II, before being transferred to the Royal Australian Navy.
USS Dewey (YFD-1) was a floating dry dock built for the United States Navy in 1905, and named for American Admiral George Dewey. The auxiliary floating drydock was towed to her station in the Philippines in 1906 and remained there until scuttled by American forces in 1942, to prevent her falling into the hands of the invading Japanese.
Rear Admiral Herbert James Ray was an officer in the United States Navy who served in World War I and World War II. A 1914 graduate of the Naval Academy, he served on the submarines USS H-2 and N-3 during World War I. In March 1942, as Chief of Staff and Aide to the Commandant of the Sixteenth Naval District, Rear Admiral Francis W. Rockwell, he participated in General Douglas MacArthur's escape from the Philippines. In Australia, he served with MacArthur's General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area staff. In September 1943, he became Captain of the battleship USS Maryland, which he commanded in the Battle of Tarawa, Battle of Kwajalein, Battle of Saipan and the Battle of Peleliu. In October 1944, he participated in the Battle of Surigao Strait, in which Maryland joined the other battleships in engaging the Japanese battleships Fusō and Yamashiro and their escorts. Ray left Maryland in December 1944, and was promoted to Commodore and appointed deputy director of the Naval Division of the US Control Group Council for Germany. After VE Day, he became the Junior United States Member of the Tripartite Naval Commission in Berlin. He retired from the Navy on 30 June 1949, and received a tombstone promotion to rear admiral due to his combat decorations.
Trabajador was a 111 foot (33.8 m) tug launched in 1931 from the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock for Visayan Stevedore-Transportation Company and registered as a United States vessel in Iloilo, Philippines.
Maryann, sometimes seen as Maryanne or Mary Anne, was a yacht requisitioned and converted by the United States Navy during the defense of the Philippines in World War II and destroyed 5 May 1942 at Corregidor to prevent capture. The yacht was "in service" and not commissioned.
Fisheries II was a vessel requisitioned by the United States Navy during the defense of the Philippines during World War II. The vessel was "in service" and not commissioned.
Q-111 Luzon was a motor torpedo boat of the United States Army during World War II as part of the Offshore Patrol based at Manila.
Q-112 Abra was a motor torpedo boat of the United States Army during World War II as part of the Offshore Patrol based at Manila.
BRP Banahaw was a British-built yacht that later served as the presidential yacht of the Commonwealth of the Philippines between 1936 and 1941.
San Felipe (YFB-12) (ex-Engineer) was a United States Army steel tugboat that later served as a ferryboat in the U.S. Navy and as an Imperial Japanese Army transport during World War II.
Naval Base Manila, Naval Air Base Manila was a major United States Navy base south of the City of Manila, on Luzon Island in the Philippines. Some of the bases dates back to 1898, the end of the Spanish–American War. Starting in 1938 civilian contractors were used to build new facilities in Manila to prepare for World War II. Work stopped on December 23, 1941, when Manila was declared not defendable against the Empire of Japan southward advance, which took over the city on January 2, 1942, after the US declared it an open city. US Navy construction and repair started in March 1945 with the taking of Manila in the costly Battle of Manila ending on March 2, 1945. Naval Base Manila supported the Pacific War and remained a major US Naval Advance Base until its closure in 1971.
The United States Navy held a number of bases in the Philippines Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Most were built by the US Navy Seabees, Naval Construction Battalions, during World War II. The US Naval Bases in Philippines were lost to the Empire of Japan in December 1941 during the Philippines campaign of 1941–1942. In February 1945 the United States Armed Forces retook the Philippines in the Battle of Manila in 1945. Before the captured US bases on Luzon were retaken the US Navy Seabees built a new large base, Leyte-Samar Naval Base, on the Philippine Island of Leyte, starting in October 1944.