USS Casa Grande (LSD-13) - World War II

World War II

Sailing from Hampton Roads 19 July 1944, Casa Grande was delayed at Balboa, Panama Canal Zone for repairs en route to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived 21 August. Here she offloaded landing craft brought from the east coast, and loaded men and equipment for the invasion of Yap. However, upon her arrival at Eniwetok on 25 September, she was ordered to Manus Island to prepare for the Leyte operation. Assigned to the Southern Attack Force, she entered Leyte Gulf uneventfully, and took part in the initial assault on 20 October. Her men worked at fever pace under enemy air attack as they launched their landing craft and serviced other small craft engaged in this triumphant return to the Philippines, and on 22 October, she withdrew for Hollandia. During the next month, she made two voyages from New Guinea to Leyte, ferrying reinforcements, and evacuating casualties.

December 1944 found Casa Grande preparing for the second of the massive operations in the Philippines, and on 31 December she sailed in Attack Group "Baker" of Task Force 79 (TF 79) for Lingayen Gulf. First enemy contact came at sunset on 8 January 1945, as a small but determined group of kamikazes attacked. One of these broke through to damage Kitkun Bay (CVE-71) severely, but Casa Grande came through unscathed, and joined in driving away the scattered individual enemy aircraft which pushed the attack onward.

Although sporadic attacks by Japanese aircraft and small ships tried to disrupt the landings, the long months of detailed planning bore fruit as Casa Grande and the others of her group carried out their landing assignments smoothly on 9 January 1945. She continued to operate in support of the invasion, plying between Lingayen, Leyte, and Morotai until 30 January. Casa Grande next cruised among the Solomons to load Marines, landing craft, and tanks for the invasion of Okinawa. She took departure from Ulithi on 26 March, and arrived off Okinawa at dawn of 1 April. Landing equipment and troops under the first of the kamikaze attacks which were to bathe the Okinawa operation in blood, she moved to Kerama Retto on 4 April to operate a small boat repair shop there until 3 June, when she sailed for a minor overhaul at Leyte.

Through July 1945, Casa Grande sailed between ports of the South Pacific and Philippines transporting men and landing craft, and on 23 July she sailed for dry-docking at San Francisco.

Between 12 September 1945, when she returned to Honolulu, and 20 April 1946, when she docked at San Francisco, Casa Grande supported occupation and redeployment operations in the western Pacific. She ferried landing craft and motor torpedo boat squadrons, calling at ports in the South Pacific, China, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, the Philippines, and Alaska. On 14 May 1946, she left San Francisco for Norfolk, Va., where she was decommissioned and laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Norfolk Group 23 October 1946.