Military Career
USS West Bridge (ID-2888) was commissioned into the Naval Overseas Transportation Service at the Puget Sound Navy Yard on 26 May with Lieutenant Commander Mortimer Hawkins, in command. West Bridge took on an initial load of flour and departed 10 June for the East Coast. Along the way, the ship developed troubles with her engine, which required her to put in at Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone for repairs. Getting under way again on 4 July, West Bridge sailed for New York, arriving on 16 July.
After refueling at New York, West Bridge joined Convoy HB-8 bound for France, sailing on 1 August in company with Navy cargo ship West Alsek, United States Army transport Montanan, and 13 others. Escorted by armed yacht Noma, destroyers Burrows and Smith, and French cruiser Marseillaise, the convoy was some 500 nautical miles (900 km) west of its destination of Le Verdon-sur-Mer by the end of the day on 15 August.
Read more about this topic: USS West Bridge (ID-2888)
Famous quotes containing the words military and/or career:
“Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.”
—Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)