U.S.S. COMMENCEMENT BAY

USS Commencement Bay (AKV-37)

USS Commencement Bay was launched in May of 1944 to support ongoing efforts during the last months of WWII. She reported for duty in Seattle during February 1945. The vessel was used as a training ship until October, based off Puget Sound. She was responsible for training 545 officers and 5,053 service men, as well as qualifying 249 pilots.

She was then sent from Bremerton to Pearl Harbor in October of 1945 where she took part in training and qualifications exercises. The ship, unlike many of her sisters, was used for training rather than support and replenishment cruises.

The ship did these operations for about a month, before returning to Seattle and then to Tacoma in November of 1945. Commencement Bay made a trip to Los Angeles and then to San Pedro through the end of January 1946, before returning to Tacoma. She was decommissioned and put on reserve in November of that year, and reclassified as CVHE-105 in 1955 and then as an AKV-37 in May of 1959. Although never directly involved in the war effort, Commencement Bay was successful in her efforts to train personnel and servicemen throughout the last stages of World War II.