USS Weehawken (CM-12) - Assignment To Pacific Theatre Operations

Assignment To Pacific Theatre Operations

On 20 April 1944, USS Weehawken received word that MinDiv 50 had been dissolved and that she was to be assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet to transport cargo, mines, and equipment to Pacific bases. On the 30th, she completed the availability which she had been undergoing at Norfolk, Virginia, since the 15th and returned to Yorktown, Virginia. She loaded mines and cargo from 7 to 9 May and then cleared Hampton Roads on the 11th.

The minelayer entered the Panama Canal on 20 May, reported for duty with the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and joined Service Squadron 6. Completing her transit of the canal in the same day, she continued her voyage up the west coast to San Diego, California, where she arrived on 1 June. Four days later, Weehawken headed west toward Hawaii. After arriving in Pearl Harbor on 14 June, she unloaded her cargo and spent 11 days at Oahu before heading back to the west coast on 25 June.

On Independence Day 1944, the warship reached San Francisco, California, and immediately began alterations at the General Engineering & Drydock Co. located at Alameda, California. She completed the modifications — which included the removal of mine tracks from the after section of her mine deck — on 1 August. After embarking passengers and loading cargo, she departed San Francisco on 8 August and shaped a course for the South Pacific. During the last two days of August, she passed through the Solomon Islands and stopped at Florida Island and Tulagi from 31 August to 5 September to disembark passengers and unload some cargo. She made Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides on 8 September and began unloading the remainder of her cargo. She embarked another group of passengers and got underway on 10 September for Pearl Harbor. After a 12-day voyage, she passed though the anti-submarine nets at Oahu and moored in Pearl Harbor.