World War II Pacific Operations
Escorting PCS-1396 and PCS-1W, the new minesweeper departed San Diego, California on 4 May, bound for Hawaii. Upon her arrival at Pearl Harbor on 11 May, Vigilance delivered 111 bags of mail to the Fleet Post Office and, three days later, got underway with Triumph (AM-323) for the Marshall Islands. The two minesweepers screened William Ward Burrows (AP-6), Fortune (IX-146), and Boreas (AF-8) to Majuro which they reached on 25 May.
Vigilance departed Majuro at 0800 on the 26th to return to Hawaii, intercepted Megrez (AK-126) en route, and relieved PC-548 of escorting that cargo ship for the remainder of the voyage to Oahu. After arriving at Pearl Harbor on 2 June, Vigilance underwent upkeep and maintenance before moving to Brown's Camp, Oahu, for experimental minesweeping evolutions which she conducted into mid-June.
On 14 June, Vigilance weighed anchor as part of the screen for convoy 4313-A, a group of three Navy cargo ships, three civilian merchantmen, and refrigerator ship Arctic (AF-7). Crouter (DE-11) and Pursuit (AM-108) joined Vigilance in escorting the convoy to Eniwetok where they arrived on 25 June.
During the second of two more round-trip runs from Pearl Harbor to the Marshalls, Vigilance suffered an engine casualty - a damaged exhaust manifold - that was beyond the capacity of the ship's force to handle. Accordingly, she went alongside Zeus (ARB-4) at Eniwetok on 24 September for repairs.
Read more about this topic: USS Vigilance (AM-324)
Famous quotes containing the words world, war, pacific and/or operations:
“A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I don’t believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The most absurd apology for authority and law is that they serve to diminish crime. Aside from the fact that the State is itself the greatest criminal, breaking every written and natural law, stealing in the form of taxes, killing in the form of war and capital punishment, it has come to an absolute standstill in coping with crime. It has failed utterly to destroy or even minimize the horrible scourge of its own creation.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The doctor of Geneva stamped the sand
That lay impounding the Pacific swell,
Patted his stove-pipe hat and tugged his shawl.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)