USS Wharton (AP-7) - First Wartime Operations

First Wartime Operations

When the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, Wharton was undergoing overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California. On 6 January 1942, the transport sailed from the west coast for her first wartime voyage to the Hawaiian Islands. A series of runs followed in which Wharton transported service families and dependents home to the west coast on her eastbound passages and troops and cargo to Hawaii on her westbound trips.

From June through September, Wharton made three voyages to the Southwest Pacific theater — loading and unloading at such ports as Pago Pago, Samoa; Auckland, New Zealand; Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides; Nouméa, New Caledonia; Canton Island, and Suva, Fiji Islands, before returning to the west coast for an overhaul which lasted into October. The troop transport then began a series of trips to the Aleutians which lasted from December 1942 to February 1943, carrying troops from Seattle, Washington, to Kodiak and Dutch Harbor and returning with civilians, troops, and patients. For the remainder of the year, Wharton made five more trips to the Southwest Pacific, during which she revisited Pago Pago, Nouméa, Suva, Espiritu Santo, and Wellington, while adding Apia, British Samoa; Guadalcanal, Solomons; and Efate, New Hebrides; to her itinerary.