World War II Atlantic Service
The Arikara was laid down on 10 January 1943 at Charleston, South Carolina, by the Charleston Shipbuilding & Drydock Company; launched on 22 June 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Taylor F. McCoy; and commissioned on 5 January 1944, Lt. John Aitken, USNR, in command.
On 15 January, the tug departed Charleston bound for Hampton Roads, Virginia. After arriving there on the 17th, she conducted shakedown training in Chesapeake Bay until the 26th. Following a post-shakedown repair period in the Norfolk Navy Yard, she stood out of the bay and shaped a northerly course. After stopping briefly at New York, Arikara moved on to Casco Bay, Maine, where she operated between 10 February and 2 March towing targets and participating in antisubmarine warfare training. She returned to New York on 4 March and began preparations for service overseas. Towing barges, the tug put to sea on 25 March as part of Task Force (TF) 67 bound for the British Isles. She reached Falmouth, England, on 20 April and, after delivering the barges, reported for duty with the 12th Fleet.
On the 24th, Arikara moved to Lee-on-the-Solent to join the British tug fleet in preparing for the invasion of Europe. During the remainder of April and all of May, she towed to dispersal points on the southeastern coast of England portions of the two "mulberries," artificial harbors to be erected on the French coast after the initial assault to provide logistical support for the movement of all Allied armies inland. On 15 May 1944, she was reclassified a fleet tug and redesignated ATF-98. Throughout the period leading up to the invasion, Arikara helped to repel German air attacks; and, though near misses shook her considerably, she suffered neither hits nor significant damage from shell fragments.
Read more about this topic: USS Arikara (ATF-98)
Famous quotes containing the words world, war, atlantic and/or service:
“Although the stupid, unthinking world may approve what you have done, in your heart you know that, but for your treachery, the boy you loved would be alive today. If anyone is responsible for his death, you killed him, and for that murder you will live and die in the contempt and loathing of your own heart.”
—Karl Brown (1897–1990)
“The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep?
The world’s at war with tyrants—shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe—and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“A man’s real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is his creed an article of his faith. The last is never adopted. This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even as bravely as he does. And yet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that does him good service because his sheet anchor does not drag.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)