Service
After her commission, PGM-17 was sent to the Pacific theater and was involved in the Battle of Okinawa. During the first days of the battle, PGM-17 spotted and destroyed several Japanese mines with small arms fire. On the first day of the ground invasion of Okinawa, on 1 April 1945, PGM-17 shot down a Japanese Aicha "Val" dive bomber. PGM-17 spent the month of April and the beginning of May scouting and destroying mines, offering assistance to disabled and damaged ships, running supplies, and fending off kamikaze attacks.
On 4 May 1945, USS PGM-17 ran aground an uncharted coral reef off the coast of Kouri Jima. A salvage tug arrived a few hours later and prepared to tow the ship. At first, the hull had no damage, but as high waves caused PGM-17 to relentlessly bash into the reef, it became clear that salvaging the ship was unlikely. On 5 May, the captain, Lieutenant Edwin L. Williams Jr. ordered all hands to abandon ship. The salvage attempt was abandoned due to rough waters. On 7 May 1945, salvage ship USS Deliver (AR-23) began salvaging PGM-17. Deliver spent five days pumping water off PGM-17 and patching the hull. However, Deliver was called off to assist USS Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) which had been struck by three kamikaze aircraft. It wasn't until two weeks later that LCI-738 began salvaging PGM-17 on 27 May 1945. After almost two weeks of salvage work, PGM-17 was finally pulled off the reef on 9 June 1945, spending over a month stranded on the reef. Despite heavy kamikaze attacks throughout the region, PMG-17 managed to go the entire time without taking enemy fire.
On 9 June 1945, USS PGM-17 was towed to the Agono Urn Cove on Zamami Shima where she was grounded on shallow water. On 2 July, she was decommissioned and left until October 1945 when she was towed out to deep waters and sunk.
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Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This was a great point gained; the archdeacon would certainly not come to morning service at Westminster Abbey, even though he were in London; and here the warden could rest quietly, and, when the time came, duly say his prayers.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Barnard’s greatest war service ... was the continuance of full-scale instruction in the liberal arts ... It was Barnard’s responsibility to keep alive in the minds of young people the great liberal tradition of the past and the study of philosophy, of history, of Greek.”
—Virginia Crocheron Gildersleeve (1877–1965)