War Service
The United States Army acquired her on 26 October 1940 and had her converted into a military transport. She was renamed J. Franklin Bell after General J. Franklin Bell, US Army Chief of Staff 1906–10. She was transferred to the United States Navy on 26 December 1941; and commissioned in ordinary before commissioning in full at San Francisco on 2 April 1942 under the command of Captain H.J. Grassie.
After shakedown, a round-trip voyage to Pearl Harbor, and more than 2 months of amphibious training along the California coast, J. Franklin Bell left San Francisco 13 August and headed via Kodiak, Alaska to Adak. She carried some 1,500 troops and a full load of cargo to strengthen American defenses in the Aleutian Islands, then threatened with invasion.
Read more about this topic: USS J. Franklin Bell (APA-16)
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or service:
“All war represents a failure of diplomacy.”
—Tony Benn (b. 1925)
“I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)