World War I Mine Clearance
After fitting out, Whippoorwill departed Boston, Massachusetts, on 3 July 1919, bound for Scotland. Operating subsequently from the port of Kirkwall, the minesweeper participated in the clearing of the North Sea Mine Barrage as part of Division 3, Minesweeping Squadron, Atlantic Fleet. Hair-trigger mines and frequent foul weather made sweeping the barrage a difficult and dangerous mission; but, by late in the autumn of 1919, the task was completed by a miscellaneous group of new minesweepers, chartered naval trawlers, and submarine chasers.
Read more about this topic: USS Whippoorwill (AM-35)
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or war:
“You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.”
—Anita Brookner (b. 1938)
“It is the women of Europe who pay the price while war rages, and it will be the women who will pay again when war has run its bloody course and Europe sinks down into the slough of poverty like a harried beast too spent to wage the fight. It will be the sonless mothers who will bend their shoulders to the plough and wield in age-palsied hands the reaphook.”
—Kate Richards O’Hare (1877–1948)