World War Service
After loading equipment at the Net Depot at Tiburon, California, Catalpa sailed 24 May 1942 for the Fiji Islands, arriving 14 June. At Nandi, Suva, and during October and November 1942 at Funafuti in the Ellice Islands, Catalpa laid and cared for harbor entrance nets, protecting important South Pacific Ocean bases. Early in 1944, she sailed to Dunedin, New Zealand, for overhaul, during which on 20 January she was redesignated AN-10.
Catalpa arrived at Cape Torokina, Bougainville, 20 February 1944 to carry out varied duties in the Solomon Islands through the spring and summer. In addition to tending nets, she laid mooring buoys, offered towing and salvage services, and provided divers for the services essential to the maintenance of fleet anchorages.
Early in September, she joined forces at Guadalcanal staging for the invasion of the Palau Islands, a vital preparation for the return to the Philippines. With the assault forces, she arrived off Peleliu on 15 September, and after standing by as the first troops smashed ashore, sailed on to mine-infested Kossol Passage to begin the work of preparing what would become a major fleet anchorage. Net and salvage operations in the Palaus were Catalpa's contribution to the continuing operations there and in the Philippines until 28 February 1945 when she got underway for Ulithi and Eniwetok.
Read more about this topic: USS Catalpa (AN-10)
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or service:
“The world is not merely the world. It is our world. It is not merely an industrial world. It is, above all things, a human world.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“In public buildings set aside for the care and maintenance of the goods of the middle ages, a staff of civil service art attendants praise all the dead, irrelevant scribblings and scrawlings that, at best, have only historical interest for idiots and layabouts.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)