Pacific Duty
While the ship was moored at Boston on 1 January 1945, her name was expanded to Thomas J. Gary. She completed her last Atlantic convoy upon her arrival at New York on 7 May and spent the remainder of the month preparing for service in the Pacific. Following refresher training in the Caribbean, she departed waters of the coast of Haiti on 22 June; steamed - via the Panama Canal - to the west coast; and departed San Diego on 12 July with the convoy bound for Hawaii. She arrived at Pearl Harbor on 20 July to begin repairs and training.
On 1 August, she departed Oahu with Escort Division 57 and steamed for Saipan. After a brief stop at Eniwetok, she was rerouted to Guam and arrived at Apra Harbor on the 13th. The same day, she again got underway; this time with Carrier Division 27. As the force steamed toward the Philippines, word of Japan's surrender reached the ship. Following her arrival at San Pedro Bay on 17 August, Thomas J. Gary remained in port until the 29th when she departed Leyte to screen the aircraft carriers of Task Group (TG) 77.1 during their passage to Korea.
Read more about this topic: USS Thomas J. Gary (DE-326)
Famous quotes containing the words pacific and/or duty:
“We, the lineal representatives of the successful enactors of one scene of slaughter after another, must, whatever more pacific virtues we may also possess, still carry about with us, ready at any moment to burst into flame, the smoldering and sinister traits of character by means of which they lived through so many massacres, harming others, but themselves unharmed.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“There is nothing on earth so easy as to forget, if a person chooses to set about it. I’m sure I have as much forgot your poor, dear uncle, as if he had never existed; and I thought it my duty to do so.”
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)