USS Caliente (AO-53) - Supporting Vietnam Evacuation and Atomic Testing

Supporting Vietnam Evacuation and Atomic Testing

In August 1954, the oiler joined Operation Passage to Freedom, the sea lift of anti-communist Vietnamese out of communist-held territory following the Geneva peace agreements in 1954. Caliente operated out of Touraine Bay, refueling some of the 74 amphibious and 39 transports involved in the evacuation of some 300,000 refugees and military personnel from Haiphong to Saigon. The oiler also participated in Operation Redwing, a series of five atmospheric nuclear tests off Eniwetok and Bikini Atolls in the Marshall Islands between 3–27 July 1956. She then returned to more mundane cargo runs in the western Pacific, including the ironic task of providing replenishment for Japanese Self-Defense Force warships.

The new decade began with Caliente conducting WestPac Ops with U.S. 7th Fleet units, including underway replenishment of Kearsarge and Ticonderoga, in the western Pacific. After another repair period in Todd Shipyard, San Pedro, California, and tender availability at Long Beach, the oiler sailed for another WestPac tour in 1961. After avoiding a typhoon off Hong Kong, on 14 July, she finished replenishment operations out of Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan, before sailing for Alaska. For ten days she steamed above the Arctic Circle, encountering intermittent fog and numerous whales, to refuel the Coast and Geodesic Survey ship USC&GS Surveyor, before departing for the warmer waters of California. On 15 August the oiler began her seventh yard overhaul at Long Beach.