Supporting The Invasion of Guam
For six days, from W + 2 to W + 8, Almaack supported the invasion of Guam; the first three days she retired at night after conducting unloading operations during the day, returning the following morning to the transport area to resume working her cargo. On the 14th, the attack cargo ship fueled the fast minesweeper USS Zane (DMS-14). The wind blew the two ships toward the fire support area where shells from the nearby battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) whistled overhead. Finally, after anchoring in a berth off the invasion beaches of W + 5 (27 July), Almaack commenced working her cargo again, aided immeasurably by two tank landing ships and a tank landing craft assigned to her for that purpose, LST-731, LCT-962 and LST-986. After debarking 16 Army officers and 306 soldiers on 29 July, Almaack sailed for Eniwetok in company with the attack transport USS Monrovia (APA-31). She proceeded thence to Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 23 August. The next day, she entered drydock to have her hull sand-blasted and painted.
Following that repair period at Pearl, Almaack loaded troops, equipment, and supplies of the Army's 96th Infantry Division, slated to take part in the planned invasion of the island of Yap, in the Carolines. After expeditiously completing the cargo loading and embarkation, the attack cargo ship sailed on 1 September for Maui, and from 2 to 6 September conducted exercises there until returning to Pearl Harbor on the 7th to complete preparations for her next operation. On 15 September, Almaack departed Hawaiian waters for the staging point, Eniwetok. One day out, however, the ship received a message indicating the planned invasion of Yap had been cancelled; a later message gave the ultimate destination as the island of Leyte, in the Philippines.
Read more about this topic: USS Almaack (AKA-10)
Famous quotes containing the words supporting the, supporting and/or invasion:
“They keep such a dingdong about “supporting the Constitution.” One might imagine it was some miserable, decrepit old creature that was no longer able to totter on crutches but must be held on every side, and dragged along like a drunken loafer, on his road to the lock-up.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“There would be no supporting life were we to feel quite as poignantly for others as we do for ourselves.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)
“In our governments the real power lies in the majority of the community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of government contrary to the sense of the constituents, but from the acts in which government is the mere instrument of the majority.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)