USS Willoughby (AGP-9) - Post-World War II Navy Career

Post-World War II Navy Career

On 24 August 1945, Willoughby got underway for Mindanao to take on a cargo of diesel fuel and arrived at Zamboanga on 26 August 1945. During her passage, she sighted a Japanese horned-type naval mine and destroyed it with gunfire. Willoughby returned to Muara Island at the end of August 1945, encountering en route on 28 August 1945 and sinking another stray Japanese naval mine.

From 30 August 1945 to 8 September 1945, Willoughby tended PT boats off Muara Island before she embarked 38 officers and 318 enlisted men of the Australian 9th Division and loaded 50 tons of supplies on 9 September 1945, at nearby Labuan Island. She got underway on 10 September 1945, bound for Tanjong Po, off the mouth of the Sarawak River. En route, she rendezvoused with six PT boats, which she accompanied for the rest of the passage.

Making arrival on 11 September 1945, 180 troops disembarked from Willoughby and went on board five of the PT boats. The sixth PT boat embarked Captain W. C. Jennings, Commander J. P. Engle, USNR, and Lieutenant Commander A. W. Fargo, USNR, three American naval officers who had been invited to attend the surrender of Japanese forces in North Borneo. Soon, the six PT boats and the Australian corvette HMAS Kapunda headed upriver.

Although the surrender ceremonies had been set for 1400 hours on board Kapunda, the Japanese commander, general Yamamura, reported that he was indisposed to attend. Ordered to show up, however, Yamamura arrived at 1500 hours. The surrender was signed, and the Japanese left Kapunda, at 1600 hours. The six PT boats then proceeded on to Kuching on the Sarawak River and put ashore the first Australian occupation troops.

The next morning, 12 September 1945, Willoughby disembarked the remaining Australian troops to the PT boats and unloaded the 50 tons of stores into two Landing craft tank (LCTs) brought to Tanjong Po for that purpose. On 13 September 1945, 210 former Allied prisoners of war and internees kept at Kuching embarked in Willoughby. Among the men transferred were two enlisted men who had been captured by the Japanese after their ship, the heavy cruiser USS Houston (CA-30, had been sunk in Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942 during the Battle of Sunda Strait. Several stretcher cases went on board the Australian hospital ship Manunda, anchored off Tanjong Po.

Underway on the afternoon of 13 September 1945, Willoughby and her PT boats headed for Labuan Island and, upon her arrival there on the evening of 14 September 1945, discharged all evacuees. Willoughby subsequently made two additional voyages to Kuching, each time transporting Australian troops and relief supplies on the inbound passage and taking out former prisoners of war and internees on the return trip. She made her last visit to Tanjong Po on 23 September 1945, returning to Brunei Bay and anchoring at her usual berth off Muara Island late on 24 September 1945.

Willoughby subsequently returned via the Philippine Islands to the United States West Coast, arriving at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, in early December 1945 for temporary duty there in connection with the repair of vessels at the yard. She continued that duty into 1946.

In the meantime, the United States Coast Guard inspected Willoughby for suitability as a weather ship. After Willoughby was classified as "not essential to the defense of the U.S.," she was decommissioned on 26 June 1946 and was simultaneously turned over to the Coast Guard at Government Island, Oakland, California. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 19 July 1946.