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U.S.S. ABNAKI
(ATF-96)ROUGH AND READY
Click to view crew list
USS ABNAKI (ATF-96) - an Abnaki-class fleet ocean tug
In Commission 1943 to 1978ATF-96 Deployments - Major Events
Add a ATF-96 Shellback Initiation | Add a ATF-96 Deployment - Major Event | ||||
Month | Year | to | Month | Year | Deployment / Event |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
NOV | 1942 | - | Keel Date: 28 NOV 1942 at Charleston Ship Building & Drydock Company Charleston SC | ||
APR | 1943 | - | Launch Date: 22 APR 1943 | ||
NOV | 1943 | - | Commissioned: 25 NOV 1943 | ||
JAN | 1969 | - | DEC | 1970 | West Pac |
AUG | 1971 | - | Shellback Initiation - 13 AUG 1971 - Pacific Ocean | ||
SEP | 1978 | - | Decommissioned: 30 SEP 1978 |
ATF-96 General Specifications
Class: Abnaki-class fleet ocean tug
Named for: Abenaki
Complement: 85 Officers and Enlisted
Displacement: 1240 tons
Length: 205 feet
Beam: 38 feet 6 inches
Flank Speed: 16 Knots
Final Disposition: Transferred to Mexico 30 September 1978
USS ABNAKI (ATF-96)
Abnaki (ATF-96) was laid down on 28 November 1942 at Charleston, S.C., by the
Charleston Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; launched on 22 April 1943; sponsored by Mrs.
James Mayon Jones;
and commissioned at the Charleston Navy Yard on 25 November 1943, Lt. Dewey
Walley in command.
The
fleet ocean tug completed shakedown in Chesapeake Bay on 10 December and began operating with the
Atlantic Fleet. She conducted towing
operations up and down the eastern seaboard
of the United States until the spring of 1944. On 28 May of that year, she got underway from Norfolk, Va.,
bound for Oran, Algeria. On 4 June,
however, while in the vicinity of the Azores, Abnaki received orders to
rendezvous with Rear Admiral Daniel V.
Gallery's Task Group (TG) 22.3 built around Guadalcanal (CVE-60). That task group had just succeeded in
capturing the German submarine U-505,
and Abnaki was to tow her to Bermuda.
She arrived there with the prize on 19 June and remained 10 days before shaping
a course for New York.
The
tug spent the early days of July in New York and stood out to sea on the 11th,
towing barges in an Oran-bound convoy. She returned to New York on 19 August having towed
the French warship
Senegalaise from Oran. From 19 September to 5 December 1944, Abnaki
made a round-trip voyage to Great Britain. During that mission, she towed
barges and tank landing ships. On the return leg of that voyage, the ship made stops at Reykjavik, Iceland; and
Argentia, Newfoundland; before returning to Norfolk. During January and February 1945,
she again steamed
to Oran and returned to Norfolk for repairs in preparation for duty with the
Pacific Fleet.
On
24 April 1945, Abnaki passed between Capes Henry and Charles on her way to
her new assignment. She arrived in the Canal Zone on 9 May, transited the
canal, and continued her voyage from Balboa on the 16th with an Army dredge in
tow. The
tug arrived in San Diego, Calif., on 2 June and remained for five days. On the
7th, she took the dredge in tow once again and weighed anchor for the Central Pacific. After a
stop at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the fleet tug entered the lagoon at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall
Islands on 25 July and discharged her tow. The following day, she got underway
again and proceeded to Eniwetok Atoll, also in the Marshalls.
Abnaki remained there through the end of hostilities. Early in October, she shifted
north to join the forces occupying Japan. That mission lasted through the end
of 1945 and the first six months of 1946. On 6 July, the fleet tug departed
Japanese waters and proceeded to China. Following a stop at Okinawa en route, she arrived at
Shanghai on 16 July and began operations between that port and Tsingtao in support of
American forces in China. On 24 October, she received orders sending her to the Mariana Islands. She
arrived at Guam during the second week in November and provided towing service between the
Marianas and
the Admiralties through the end of the year. After February 1947, the Commander,
Service Force, Pacific Fleet, expanded her sphere of operations to include ports in Japan
and in China. The
latter ports, however, were closed to her after the communist takeover in 1949.
The
tug continued to operate in Far Eastern waters while the communist tide swept over the Asian mainland
engulfing not only China and Manchuria but
also the northern half of Korea where the Soviet occupation forces had
established a puppet regime under
Kim II Sung on 1 May 1948. Just over two years later, that event led to the
invasion of South Korea by communist forces
from the north late in June 1950. Though American units, under the
auspices of a Soviet-boycotted United Nations, moved into the breach quickly, Abnaki did not enter the zone of combat operations for over a year. In July 1951,
however, she joined Service Division (ServDiv) 31 in providing mobile
logistics support to the United Nations naval task forces engaged in the conflict. Abnaki's direct support for
United Nations forces in Korea ended in February 1952, and she resumed
service in Western and Central Pacific waters
somewhat removed from the designated combat zone.
Save
for an overhaul or two at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, her service in the Far East and in the
waters of the Central
Pacific continued unbroken until 1955. After participating in evacuation of
Nationalist Chinese troops and civilians from the Tachen Islands in March of that year, the tug served in the Orient for a little over three months more. On 15
July 1955, she got underway from
Sasebo, Japan, for Hawaii. En route to Hawaii,
the fleet tug encountered an Army ship, FS-179, in distress and took her in tow. The two ships arrived
at Pearl Harbor on 1 August. For the
next 17 months, Abnaki operated from that base in the mid-Pacific
operating area, voyaging only as far as such
outlying islands as Midway and Johnston.
Her itinerary changed
late in February 1957 when she steamed to San Francisco, Calif., to take
Springfield (CL-66) in tow for the first leg
of her journey to the east coast for her conversion to a guided missile
cruiser. The two ships departed San Francisco on
2 March and arrived at Rodman in the Canal Zone on the 29th. There, Abnaki
turned her charge over to Nipmuc (ATF-157) and headed back to Oahu for
operations in Hawaiian waters through the summer. On 17 September, the fleet
tug set sail for the Far East and provided
support services for units of the 7th Fleet until returning to Pearl Harbor on
27 February 1958 and resuming
mid-Pacific operations. On 18 November, she stood out of Pearl Harbor for another deployment with the
7th Fleet in the western Pacific.
Upon
her return to Hawaii midway through 1959, Abnaki took up the familiar
chore of towing various types of vessels between locations in the islands and to the more
distant Johnston
and Midway. On 6 February 1960, she stood out of Pearl Harbor and shaped a
course just a few degrees west of north. The tug arrived at Adak, Alaska, on the 14th and assisted in the salvage
of Kodiak (LSM-161) before sailing for Oahu on 5 May.
Arriving
in Pearl Harbor on 12 May, the ship resumed her mid-Pacific duties. On 3 April
1961, she embarked upon another deployment
to the western Pacific. After four months of towing duties between such ports as Sasebo and Yokosuka in Japan, Ream in
Cambodia, Naha and Buckner Bay at Okinawa, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, Abnaki returned to Pearl Harbor on
8 August.
Following
a leave, upkeep, and repair period, she once again began mid-Pacific duties early in September
and continued the task through the year's
end. On 24 January 1962, she departed Pearl Harbor and arrived in Adak on 1
February. The fleet tug conducted
local operations in the Aleutians until 20 April when she shaped a course for
Seattle, Wash. Following a six-day layover
there, Abnaki headed for Oahu on 4 May and arrived at Pearl
Harbor on the 12th. That summer, between 23 July and 7 September, she again deployed to the Aleutians. A return to mid-Pacific operations came early in September and
lasted until she moved to the western Pacific on 21 May 1963.
That four-month tour
of duty consisted of the normal round of port
visits and of towing services to units of the 7th Fleet. Similarly, her return to Pearl Harbor brought the
familiar towing and salvage operations in the mid-Pacific operating area. That routine was broken only once, during late January
and early February 1964 when she made
a round-trip voyage to San Francisco. Abnaki spent much of 1964
in operations out of Pearl Harbor and concluded the year preparing to deploy to
the western Pacific.
During the latter
part of 1964, American involvement in the civil
war in Vietnam began to escalate as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. That development heralded a
change in the nature of Abnaki's western Pacific deployments over the
ensuing eight years. She departed Pearl Harbor with a dredge in tow on 4 January 1965 bound for Yokosuka, Japan. The
dredge sank on the 19th; and, the following day, Abnaki entered Subic Bay in the Philippines. She operated locally out of Subic
Bay until 5 March when she sailed for Vietnam. The tug served in Vietnamese waters as tender for a squadron of
minecraft and conducted some patrols. She completed that assignment on
31 March and headed back to Subic Bay where
she arrived on 4 April.
After
eight days of upkeep at Subic Bay, she put to sea for a second tour of duty in Vietnamese waters. That
mission concluded, Abnaki shaped a
course for Hong Kong on 30 April for a liberty call from 3 to 8 May. Following
a visit to Yokosuka from 14 to 20 May,
the ship began the voyage back to Hawaii and arrived at Pearl Harbor
on 1 June. After a 16-day leave and upkeep period, she resumed mid-Pacific operations
out of her home port.
Following a
three-month overhaul, three weeks of refresher training, and almost two months of local operations, Abnaki departed Pearl Harbor on 29 March 1966 for the
western Pacific. She stopped at Guam along the way, before arriving in
Nagasaki, Japan, late in April. The
fleet tug towed an Army power barge from
Nagasaki to Naha, Okinawa, for 12 days of upkeep. She departed that port
on 19 May and arrived in Danang, South Vietnam,
on the 22d. Between 23 May and 20 June, Abnaki operated in the South
China Sea in support of 7th Fleet ships assigned to Yankee Station and made an overnight stop at Danang on 20 and 21 June before getting underway for Hong
Kong. The ship remained at the
British crown colony from 25 June to 2 July and then headed for Subic Bay for
an upkeep period which occupied her for the bulk of July. On 26 July,
she put to sea for Yokosuka and-after a stop
at Buckner Bay, Okinawa-arrived at that port on 5 August. The tug stood out of
Yokosuka a week later, towing
LSSL-102, and moored at the Army pier at Sattahip, Thailand, on the 29th. She remained in Thailand,
making one liberty call at Bangkok, until 22 September. Getting underway
that day, the fleet tug shaped a course for Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After nine days of upkeep at Kaohsiung, she set
sail for Guam on 8 October and picked up her final tow of the deployment there
on 16 October before steaming on
toward Vietnam. She anchored off Vung Tau on Navy Day 1966, transferred
her charge, and then got underway on 28
October to return home via Sasebo and Yokosuka.
The
beginning of 1967 saw her resume local operations between Hawaii and the outlying islands. During
the first three weeks in May, the fleet tug
made a round-trip voyage to Seattle, Wash.
After returning, Abnaki carried out mid-Pacific towing duties until
mid-August. On the 18th, she exited Pearl Harbor on her way back to the Far East. Following stops at Guam and Subic Bay, the ship arrived at Danang on 15
September, took up duty on trawler surveillance patrol on Yankee Station, and
spent most of the following month shadowing the Soviet trawler Ampermetr. Relieved on 15 October, Abnaki
proceeded to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. On
the way, however, she encountered Typhoon
"Carla" and had to detour. Later, she went to the assistance of an Army tug towing a crane. When the Army
vessel suffered mechanical
difficulties that forced her to cut loose the crane to save herself, Abnaki brought the crane in
safely. Next, she spent six days of
rest and relaxation at Hong Kong before returning to Subic Bay for a three-week upkeep period.
Abnaki departed Subic Bay on 25 November and set course for Vietnam. On the
27th, the fleet tug joined Bolster (ARS-38) and Ute (ATF-76) near Due Pho,
South Vietnam, to assist in salvaging Clarke County (LST-601). After much
labor, they refloated the tank
landing ship on 1 December. On 7 December, she relieved Chanticleer (ASR-7) as
trawler surveillance unit. Relieved of that
mission on the 23d, Abnaki steamed to My Tho where she picked up a tow on the 27th and shaped a course for Sasebo.
However, the fleet tug stopped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, from 6 to 19 January 1968 to have the patch on the hull of the barge she was towing replaced. Continuing on, Abnaki
towed her charge into Sasebo on the
24th. On 30 January, she stood out of
Sasebo on her way back to Pearl Harbor.
The
ship reentered her home port on Lincoln's Birthday and began over a month of
post-deployment standdown. From 18 March to 8 July, the ship resumed her familiar
mid-Pacific duties. On 8 July,
she entered the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for an overhaul which lasted until 25 October. For the next month, she completed refresher training and preparations for
overseas movement. On 26 November, Abnaki
returned to sea, again bound for the
Far East.
The
voyage west brought stops at Guam and Subic Bay-where Abnaki delivered floating crane YD-127-before she reentered the combat zone off Vietnam. The tug arrived at
Danang on the last day of 1968. On
the morning of New Year's Day 1969, she departed Danang to pick up garbage
lighter YG-52 at Subic Bay. The ship arrived there on the 3d, departed
the next morning with her charge in tow, and delivered it at Danang on the 8th before heading back toward Subic Bay that same
day. En route, she received orders to Naha, Okinawa, to assist in the salvage
of a grounded tank landing ship. She
completed that mission on 19 January, reentered Subic Bay on the 24th,
and headed back toward Danang on the 29th.
The ship arrived there on the 31st
and, on 1 February,
put to sea for a 21-day tour of duty on Yankee
Station. Late in the month, she towed Asheville (PG-84) from Camranh Bay to Yokosuka. In March, she
visited Tsoying, Taiwan, to train
members of the Taiwanese Navy in salvage techniques. After a liberty call at
Hong Kong early in April, the ship returned to Subic Bay until late in
the month. She got underway on the 26th
bound for Guam with AFDM-5 in tow. She and
her charge reached Apra Harbor on 15 May; and, on the 16th, Abnaki
continued on toward Hawaii.
The
fleet tug arrived in Pearl Harbor on 28 May and began post-deployment standdown
and a restricted availability. She commenced local operations on 1 July and that assignment
continued into 1970. Late in
January of that year, Abnaki headed for the
western Pacific and arrived in Subic Bay toward the end of the second week in February. Although most of
that deployment was devoted to operations out of Subic Bay followed by visits
to Sasebo and Hong Kong, the fleet
tug made a voyage into the Vietnam
combat zone when she visited Danang late in May. In mid-June, she headed back
to Pearl Harbor where she arrived at the
end of the month for operations out of that port into the spring of the following year.
On
29 April 1971, she pointed her bow westward once more to deploy with the 7th Fleet
in the Far East. She made a stop at Guam before arriving in Subic Bay in mid-May.
Later in the month,
she voyaged to Vung Tau, South Vietnam, apparently to deliver a tow, because
she departed the Vietnamese port on the same day she arrived. The Vietnam
conflict does not appear to have played a major role in her 1971 deployment since
she made only
a few brief stops there-mostly at Vung Tau. She spent a large proportion of her
time in and around Subic Bay and made port visits to Hong Kong; Singapore; and Ream,
Cambodia. Late in September, Abnaki stood out of Subic Bay for Apra Harbor, Guam, on her way back to Pearl Harbor. After
an eight-day layover at Apra Harbor, she
continued her voyage to the Oahu base where she arrived on 20 October to
resume Hawaiian operations.
Towing
and training missions occupied her time until she put to sea on 21 August 1972
to rejoin the 7th Fleet in the western Pacific. Towing one Philippine minesweeper,
escorting another, and making
stops at Midway and Guam, Abnaki took over a month to make the voyage to Subic Bay. She arrived there on 28 September
and remained until 3 October when she returned to sea to tow a floating crane to Vietnam. She arrived in Danang on 7 October, delivered her charge, and began duty
as the standby salvage ship there.
That duty involved staying in Danang harbor during the day to provide salvage services and putting to sea each night because of the threat posed by Viet Cong
sapper-swimmers. She concluded that assignment on 20 October and then visited
Hong Kong and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The tug returned to Subic Bay in mid-November
and then ended the year visiting such ports as Ream, Singapore, and
Bangkok.
During
the latter portion of this deployment, Abnaki made no voyages to Vietnam. Instead, she operated
exclusively out of Subic Bay, breaking that
routine but once during the second half of January 1973 for missions to Kaohsiung and Tsoying in Taiwan. On 20 February, she departed Subic Bay to return
home. Along the way, the fleet tug made stops at Guam and Kwajalein before reentering
Pearl Harbor on 13 March. Renewed operations out of Pearl Harbor lasted until 25 June 1973 when she got underway for a new home port-San Diego, Calif. The
ship stood into her new base on 13 July and spent the remainder of the
year either in port at San Diego or making
tows to various points along the
California coast. That employment continued into the New Year 1974. On 19 February, the ship entered
the Fellows & Stuart Shipyard for a seven-month overhaul.
Abnaki completed the overhaul on 19 September and returned to San Diego the next
day. Refresher training followed in October; and, at the beginning of November, she resumed
west coast operations
out of San Diego. During December 1974 and the first part of January 1975, she prepared for
overseas duty. On the 11th, the fleet tug
weighed anchor to begin her voyage to the Far East. She made only one stop- at Pearl Harbor from 20 to 22
January-before arriving in Subic Bay on 9 February. Two days later, she got underway to participate in
Readex 1-75 conducted in the South China Sea. Following that exercise, Abnaki
visited Yokosuka and Sasebo in Japan. In March, she made a four-day liberty call at Hong Kong followed by a
visit to Singapore. She returned to
Subic Bay early in April but, on the 10th, got underway for Vung Tau where she salvaged the cargo door
of a C-5A cargo
plane. After participation in Operation "Frequent Wind,"-the evacuation of Saigon-Abnaki returned to Yokosuka
on 15 May for three weeks of upkeep before heading for the Marianas on 8 June. The fleet tug arrived at Guam
on 13 May, loaded supplies destined
for the natives of the Marshall Islands, and put to sea again on the
16th. After dropping the supplies off at several of the smaller atolls in the
Marshalls, she continued on via Pearl Harbor
to San Diego where she arrived on 13 July.
Operations along the
California coast kept the tug busy until the
beginning of October when she began an extended restricted availability at San
Diego. The new year began with the ship still in port at San Diego. However,
she embarked upon her first tow on 2 January 1976 and remained active-shuttling
tows between various California ports for the first seven months of 1976. On 7 August,
the ship left San Diego to join a Fijian minesweeper at Seattle, Wash., for the
voyage to Fiji. The two ships got underway on 16 August and set a course for
Pearl Harbor where they arrived on 24 August
and remained a week for repairs to the minesweeper's communications equipment.
En route to Suva, Fiji, Abnaki assisted a civilian auxiliary
sailboat grounded on a reef at Palmyra Island and towed it to Christmas Island.
Abnaki and the Fijian minesweeper arrived at Suva, Fiji, on 17 September. The American ship remained at Suva until the
21st when she got underway for Subic Bay. En route, she stopped at Kapingamarangi
Atoll to drop off cargo for the natives and at West Fayu Island to investigate
a suspected violation of territorial waters by a Japanese fishing trawler. She
finally arrived in Subic Bay on 4 October.
The fleet tug
conducted operations out of Subic Bay over the following month. On 7 November, she stood out of Subic Bay bound
for Borneo. She made a five-day visit at Kuching and then got underway on 16
November for Puerto Princessa on Palawan in
the southwestern Philippines. Abnaki returned to Subic Bay on 22
November and remained there until the 26th when she shaped a course for Hong Kong. At the crown colony
from 29 November to 9 December, she combined business with pleasure, serving as station submarine service ship while
portions of her crew enjoyed liberty ashore. The ship returned to Subic
Bay on 11 December and remained until the
19th. On the latter day, she shaped a
course for the Marianas. Abnaki arrived at Guam on Christmas Eve day 1976. On 29 December, she headed
for Kwajalein to embark Rear Admiral
Carroll, Commander, Naval Forces, Marianas, for transportation to Kusaie Atoll
for its independence celebration. The round-trip voyage from Kwajalein to Kusaie took from 2 to 6 January 1977. On 8
January, Abnaki sailed to Guam
where she picked up two yard craft to tow to Pearl Harbor. Departing Guam on 12 January 1977, she dropped off her charges at Pearl Harbor on 13 February,
resumed her voyage to the west coast
the following day, and reached San Diego on 22 February.
Abnaki spent the remainder of her Navy career operating along the west coast.
Following post-deployment standdown and an extended availability, in May, she
resumed towing and other operations along the California coast including
surveillance operations,
other fleet services, and training evolutions. At the beginning of 1978, Abnaki
towed a cable-laying ship to Panama. During that voyage, she also made a call at Esmeraldas, Ecuador, before
returning to San Diego on 12 February 1978. Normal operations along the west
coast occupied her time from mid-February
until April. The first week in April brought fleet exercises followed by a resumption of fleet services.
During the first half of June, Abnaki
participated in another series of fleet exercises and then resumed her usual west coast missions.
On 15 August 1978, Abnaki
began preparations for decommissioning and transfer to the Mexican Navy. She
was placed out of commission on 30
September 1978 and was simultaneously transferred to the Mexican Navy. Her name was struck from the Navy
list that same day, and she was commissioned in the Mexican Navy as Yaqui (A-18), Lt. Guttierez in command.
Abnaki earned three battle stars for service during the Korean conflict and 10
battle stars during the Vietnam war.
[Note: The above USS ABNAKI (ATF-96) history may, or may not, contain text provided by crew members of the USS ABNAKI (ATF-96), or by other non-crew members, and text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships]