War Service
On 31 July 1941 President Pierce was taken over for the US Army, which renamed her USAT Hugh L. Scott after General Hugh L. Scott, who was Army Chief of Staff 1914–17. She made four voyages to the Far East before sailing to the US East Coast in July 1942.
On 14 August 1942 she was transferred to the US Navy and Tietjen and Long of Hoboken, New Jersey converted her into an attack transport. on 7 September 1942 she was commissioned as USS Hugh L. Scott, under the command of Captain Harold J. Wright.
Hugh L. Scott took part in Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. As part of Transport Division 3 (TransDiv 3) she sailed on 24 October after intensive amphibious training. She approached the beaches at Fedhala, French Morocco, early on the morning of 8 November and — after bombardment by surface ships — landed her troops. She then cleared the immediate invasion area and did not return until 11 November, when she entered the refueling area and then anchored in the exposed Fedhala roadstead to unload her supplies.
Read more about this topic: USS Hugh L. Scott (AP-43)
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or service:
“War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“We too are ashes as we watch and hear
The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise
Of one whose promised thoughts of other days
Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed,
The service record of his youth wiped out,
His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)