The first USS La Salle (AP-102) of the United States Navy was the lead ship of her class of transport ships in use during the latter part of World War II.
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.
The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to military ships and larger civilian craft.
A troopship is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Operationally, standard troopships – often drafted from commercial shipping fleets – cannot land troops directly on shore, typically loading and unloading at a seaport or onto smaller vessels, either tenders or barges.
Type C2 ships were designed by the United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) in 1937–38. They were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, and U.S. shipyards built 173 of them from 1939 to 1945. Compared to ships built before 1939, the C2s were remarkable for their speed and fuel economy. Their design speed was 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h), but some could make 19 knots (35 km/h) on occasion. The first C2s were 459 feet (140 m) long, 63 feet (19 m) broad, and 40 feet (12 m) deep, with a 25-foot (8 m) draft. Later ships varied somewhat in size.
Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and shipbuilding company in Oakland, California.
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 425,195 as of 2017, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.
Service history
Renamed La Salle on 6 April 1943, she left Naval Base Ventura County in Port Hueneme, California on 14 April with Seabees for Guadalcanal, returning to San Francisco on 10 July. On 7 August, she departed from Port Hueneme, California, carrying contingents of United States Navy Argus Units 7,8 and 9, the Ninth Special Construction Battalion and the Fifth Special Medical Unit all bound for operations in the South Pacific. From there she steamed to Wellington, New Zealand, arriving on 27 October. There and in the New Hebrides, she conducted simulated attacks and landing boat exercises with marines in preparation for the assault on Tarawa, for which she sailed on 13 November with Task Force 53. She arrived off the invasion beaches on 19 November, and was shelled by enemy shore batteries early the next morning, suffering no serious damage. She cleared Tarawa the 24th and steamed to San Diego, where she arrived on 13 December to prepare for the invasion of the Marshalls.
Naval Base Ventura County (NBVC) is a United States Navy base located near Oxnard, California. The base was formed in 2000 through the merger of Naval Air Station Point Mugu and Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme. NBVC is a diverse installation comprising three main facilities—Point Mugu, Port Hueneme and San Nicolas Island—and serving as an all-in-one mobilization site, deep water port, railhead, and airfield. NBVC supports more than 100 tenant commands with a base population of more than 19,000 personnel, making it the largest employer in Ventura County.
Port Hueneme is a small beach city in Ventura County, California surrounded by the city of Oxnard and the Santa Barbara Channel. The name derives from the Spanish spelling of the Ventureño phrase wene me, meaning "Resting Place". The town's name was officially changed to Port Hueneme in 1939 and was incorporated March 24, 1948. Both the Port of Hueneme and Naval Base Ventura County lie within city limits.
Guadalcanal is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of the nation of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. The island is mainly covered in dense tropical rainforest and has a mountainous interior.
La Salle left the west coast on 13 January 1944 and arrived off Kwajalein eight days later to land men of the 4th Marine Division. La Salle left the atoll on 8 February for Pearl Harbor, then later made several reinforcement movements.
The 4th Marine Division is a reserve division in the United States Marine Corps. It was raised in 1943 for service during World War II, and subsequently fought in the Pacific against the Japanese. Deactivated after the war, the division was re-formed in 1966 and elements of the division deployed during the Gulf War in 1990–1991. It is currently the ground combat element of the Marine Forces Reserve and is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana and has units throughout the United States.
Pearl Harbor is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It has been long visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is now a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the United States Pacific Fleet. The U.S. government first obtained exclusive use of the inlet and the right to maintain a repair and coaling station for ships here in 1887. The attack on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of Japan on December 7, 1941, was the immediate cause of the United States' entry into World War II.
From Pearl Harbor she sailed on 11 May with troops for the invasion of the Marianas, arriving on D-Day, 15 June to witness the pre-invasion bombardment before landing her marines. She retired from the battle zone on 23 June and reached Pearl Harbor on 24 July. She then proceeded to Guadalcanal in August where rehearsals for the capture of the Palaus ended on 8 September. She arrived off the Palaus on 15 September and made a feinting attack to keep enemy troops occupied in the northern islands during the attack on Peleliu itself. She landed her troops on the beaches of Angaur the 17th and departed on 23 September for Manus, where she embarked 1,373 troops of the Army 1st Cavalry Division for the Leyte invasion.
The Mariana Islands are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the western North Pacific Ocean, between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east. They lie south-southeast of Japan, west-southwest of Hawaii, north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines, demarcating the Philippine Sea's eastern limit. They are found in the northern part of the western Oceanic sub-region of Micronesia, and are politically divided into two jurisdictions of the United States: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and, at the southern end of the chain, the territory of Guam. The islands were named after the influential Spanish queen Mariana of Austria.
In the military, D-Day is the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. The best known D-Day is during World War II, on June 6, 1944—the day of the Normandy landings—initiating the Western Allied effort to liberate mainland Europe from Nazi Germany. However, many other invasions and operations had a designated D-Day, both before and after that operation.
Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country located in the western Pacific Ocean. The country contains approximately 340 islands, forming the western chain of the Caroline Islands in Micronesia, and has an area of 466 square kilometers (180 sq mi). The most populous island is Koror. The capital Ngerulmud is located on the nearby island of Babeldaob, in Melekeok State. Palau shares maritime boundaries with the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
La Salle reached the northern transport area off Leyte on 20 October, and all troops and cargo were ashore by nightfall. She retired to the Palaus and then to Guam, where she embarked reinforcements for transport to San Pedro Bay on 23 November. The vessel next loaded 934 troops at Sansapor, New Guinea, and sailed on 30 December for Luzon. On the morning of her departure, she assisted in shooting down an enemy "Jake". She unloaded on 9 January at Lingayen Gulf, and then returned to Leyte.
San Pedro Bay is a bay in the Philippines, at the northwest end of Leyte Gulf, about 15 km east-west and 20 km north-south. The bay is bounded by two islands; on the north and east by Samar, and on the east by Leyte. It is connected by San Juanico Strait to Carigara Bay of the Samar Sea. The largest city on the bay is Tacloban City, the capital of Leyte province.
New Guinea is a large island separated by a shallow sea from the rest of the Australian continent. It is the world's second-largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 785,753 km2 (303,381 sq mi), and the largest wholly or partly within the Southern Hemisphere and Oceania.
The Aichi E13A was a long-range reconnaissance seaplane used by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) from 1941 to 1945. Numerically the most important floatplane of the IJN, it could carry a crew of three and a bombload of 250 kg (550 lb). The Navy designation was "Navy Type Zero Reconnaissance Seaplane" (零式水上偵察機).
On 29 January 1945 she arrived off Luzon to discharge 731 troops in order to block Japanese retirement into the Bataan Peninsula. She departed the same day and put into San Pedro Bay on 1 February to prepare for the invasion of Okinawa, off which she arrived from Ulithi on 11 April. She fought off heavy suicide attacks during the next five days, and retired unscathed on 16 April, steaming for Guam and a Seattle overhaul.
Between September 1945 and June 1946, La Salle made four "Magic Carpet" voyages, and one passage in January to deliver occupation troops to Yokosuka. She decommissioned at Seattle on 24 July 1946 and was returned to the Maritime Commission the following day.
La Salle received eight battle stars for World War II service.
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