USS Weehawken (CM-12) - Central Pacific Operations

Central Pacific Operations

She spent eight days in Hawaii before embarking upon an extended voyage to the Central Pacific during which she visited a number of islands and bases. On 1 and 2 October, she embarked passengers bound for Saipan in the recently won Mariana Islands and, on the latter date, passed Diamond Head and set course for the Central Pacific. Weehawken made a brief overnight stop at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 13 and 14 October and made Saipan on the 18th. Between 18 and 28 October, she unloaded mines, embarked passengers, and loaded cargo. From 28 October to 1 November, she steamed from Saipan to Kossol Roads — in the Palau Islands — where she embarked additional passengers and resumed her voyage. On 4 November, she sailed into the lagoon at Ulithi Atoll in the western Carolines. She spent the next two weeks at the atoll.

After disembarking her passengers and riding out a typhoon, Weehawken departed Ulithi on the 18th bound for the Marianas. She reached Guam the next day, took on passengers, and departed again by the 21st. Two days later, the minelayer reentered Ulithi. Early in December, she made a round-trip voyage to the Palaus, returning to Ulithi on the 10th. Five days later, the warship put to sea with a convoy bound for Saipan. She arrived in Saipan on the 17th and remained there five days before returning to sea — bound via Eniwetok to Pearl Harbor where she arrived on 8 January 1945.

Four days after her arrival, Weehawken shifted berths to the navy yard to begin another series of alterations and repairs. On 21 February, the ship stood out of Pearl Harbor once again and headed west. It arrived in Eniwetok on 4 March and, the following day, took leave of the convoy, and departed Eniwetok for Ulithi in company with Facility (AM-233). The two warships entered the lagoon at Ulithi on the 11th, and Weehawken began duty as a tender for motor minesweepers.

Almost a month later on 5 April, the minelayer exited the anchorage at Ulithi in convoy with Monadnock (CM-9), Mona Island (ARG-9), and Clemson (APD-31). The convoy passed Okinawa during the mid-morning hours of 10 April and anchored in Kerama Retto just before 1400. Weehawken immediately began providing logistic support, tender, and other services to the minesweeping units operating in the 10-day-old occupation of Okinawa. For the next three months, she remained anchored in Kerama Retto except for two occasions — 4 June and 11 June — when she left the anchorage to evade typhoons. In both cases, she resumed her duties in Kerama Retto immediately after the storm passed.