World War II Pacific Service
Reassigned later in the month, the attack transport took on Marines and headed for the Pacific. On 9 October she arrived at Wellington, New Zealand, departing, on the 27th, for Efate, the staging area for the Tarawa assault. By 20 November she stood off that atoll as flagship of TransDiv 18. Afterward, with casualties, elements of the remaining units of the 2nd Marine Division, and several POWs, she returned to Hawaii.
During December and January 1944, she conducted training exercises in the Hawaiian area with Marine and Army personnel. On 22 January she sailed for her third amphibious operation, Kwajalein, participating in the assault there on the 31st, and returning casualties and POWs to Pearl Harbor in February. She then sailed on to San Diego, arriving 17 February for availability and 2 months of training off southern California.
Underway for the combat area again in June, she participated in the assault on Saipan, again landing personnel of the 2nd Marine Division, in spite of reefs, mortar fire, and aerial resistance. After the Battle of the Philippine Sea, she once more transported casualties and POWs to Hawaii, whence she sailed, 9 July, for Guam with units of the 77th Infantry Division. Arriving on the 22nd, she remained in the assault area for 7 days before returning, with casualties, to Pearl Harbor for a brief availability.
In September, with 96th Infantry Division troops embarked, the transport sailed west again, arriving at Manus, the staging area for the upcoming Philippine offensive, 3 October. By dawn, 20 October, she was off Leyte. Unloaded by 1800, on the 21st, she got underway in time to clear the gulf before the arrival of Japanese naval units en route from the Sulu Sea. Heading southeast, she steamed to New Guinea, whence she lifted elements of the 11th Airborne Division to Leyte. She then sailed to New Britain, took on units of the 40th Infantry Division and returned to Manus to stage for the assault on Luzon.
Departing 31 December, she encountered aerial resistance in Lingayen Gulf, 1945-01-09, and, on the 10th, enabled a Japanese suicide swimmer to join his ancestors before departing for Leyte to take on 1st Cavalry Division troops for transport to the Luzon beaches. Monrovia then returned to the Solomons, took on units of the 6th Marine Division, and, as flagship, TransDiv 36, conducted amphibious exercises in preparation for Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa. From the Solomons, she proceeded to Ulithi to join other ships assigned to TF 53, the northern attack force, and headed for the Hagushi beaches. By dusk on 1 April, she had landed all her marines, but, because of nightly retirements, did not complete discharging her cargo until the 5th. She then steamed eastward, arriving at Portland, Oregon, on the 28th for overhaul.
Monrovia returned to the western Pacific after the Japanese surrender and immediately commenced transporting occupation troops and supplies to China and Japan, returning to the United States with battle weary veterans. She continued to transit the Pacific, between the west coast and Japan, as a cargo and personnel carrier until the spring of 1946, when she was ordered to the east coast for inactivation. On 1946-07-31, she reported to the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, at Norfolk, decommissioning there 1947-02-26.
Read more about this topic: USS Monrovia (APA-31)
Famous quotes containing the words world war, world, war, pacific and/or service:
“Surely there is not a capitalist or well-informed person in this world today who believes that [World War I] is being fought to make the world safe for democracy. It is being fought to make the world safe for capital.”
—Rose Porter Stokes (1879–1933)
“O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults,
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I really don’t think this war will end soon. We are completely aware of the difficulties, no food or fuel, the danger, but we want to be stronger than all that. With each child, we are fighting back with our love of life.”
—Tina Bajraktarebic (b. 1965)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)