Supporting The Invasion of The Marshall Islands
Ten days later, Wintle received orders assigning her to the 5th Amphibious Force for "Operation Flintlock", the invasion of the Marshall Islands. She departed Pearl Harbor that same day escorting four tank landing ships to Majuro. Wintle and her charges reached that atoll on 1 February to find that the American force had taken it without opposition the previous day. The destroyer escort led the patrol of the entrance of the lagoon on the 2nd, then met Caliente (AO-53) at sea, and escorted her into the lagoon on the 3rd. She then resumed anti-submarine warfare (ASW) patrol off Majuro and continued the task for the next six days. On the 9th and 10th, she escorted Sangay (AE-10) to Kwajalein, then headed back to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived on the 23rd. Wintle remained in the Hawaiian Islands until 2 March, when she got underway with Stadtfeld (DE-29) to escort a three-ship convoy to the Gilberts. They saw their charges safely to the Gilberts on 11 March and got underway the following day for the Solomons. Proceeding via Funafuti, the two destroyer escorts arrived off Lunga Point, Guadalcanal, on 18 March and reported for duty with the 3rd Fleet. For the next six months, Wintle crisscrossed the Southwest Pacific escorting tankers, transports, and cargo-men to and from various American bases, most frequently between the Solomons and the Admiralty Islands. When not engaged in escort missions, she honed her ASW skills during exercises with American submarines.
On 19 September, she arrived at Manus Island concluding her last Solomons-Admiralties run. On the 22d, she headed out of Seeadler Harbor for a new theater, the Palau Islands in the Central Pacific. The warship arrived in the anchorage at Kossol Passage three days later. Her stay proved brief because she set course back to Manus that same day. She reached Seeadler Harbor on 5 October and, after a brief availability alongside Piedmont (AD-17), headed back to the Palaus where she arrived on 15 October. During the following month, Wintle performed patrol and escort duties in the Palaus. On 10 November, she relieved Buchanan (DD-484) off Denges Passage and fired starshells over the passage and nearby Ngeregong Island in support of troops embarked in landing craft patrolling against the possibility of enemy reinforcements reaching Peleliu from Ngeregong. That duty lasted until 12 November when she left station to assist PC-1260, damaged in a collision with Kenmore (AK-221).
Read more about this topic: USS Wintle (DE-25)
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