USS Tripoli (CVE-64)
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![]() USS Tripoli (CVE-64) in April 1944
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History | |
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Name | Tripoli |
Namesake | Battle of Derna |
Builder | Kaiser Shipbuilding Company |
Laid down | 1 February 1943 |
Launched | 13 July 1943 |
Commissioned | 31 October 1943 |
Decommissioned | 22 May 1946 |
Recommissioned | 5 January 1952 |
Decommissioned | 25 November 1958 |
Stricken | 1 February 1959 |
Fate | Sold for scrap, January 1960 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Casablanca-class escort carrier |
Displacement | 7,800 long tons (7,925 t) |
Length | 512 ft 3 in (156.13 m) overall |
Beam | 65 ft (20 m), 108 ft (33 m) maximum width |
Draft | 22 ft 4 in (6.81 m) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Speed | 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
Range | 10,240 nmi (18,960 km; 11,780 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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Aircraft carried | 28 |
Service record | |
Part of: | Escort Carrier Task Group 21.15 (1943-44), 4th Fleet (1944-1945), Military Sealift Command (1952-58) |
Operations: |
Operation Magic Carpet (1945), Korean War (1952) |
USS Tripoli (CVE-64) was a
Construction
She was built under a
Service history
World War II
Following shakedown training off the
Atlantic
Subsequently repaired, Tripoli departed San Diego on 31 January, bound for the
After providing air cover for a convoy routed to the British West Indies, Tripoli's Wildcats and Avengers searched the sea lanes northwest, southwest, and west of the Cape Verdes before putting into Recife, Brazil on 5 April, to refuel and provision. Back at sea again two days later, Tripoli continued the routine of daily launchings and recoveries of her aircraft, guarding the Allied sea lanes against the incursions of enemy U-boats.
About one hour before sunrise on 19 April, one of Tripoli's Avengers made radar contact with a German U-boat as the submarine cruised on the surface awaiting the arrival of her "
Returning to Norfolk on 29 April, Tripoli underwent voyage repairs before embarking
Following her return to Norfolk on 18 June, Tripoli spent two months in carrier qualification training off Quonset Point, Rhode Island, before making port again at Norfolk on 15 July. Embarking Composite Squadron 6, she conducted two weeks of pilot qualifications in the Chesapeake Bay area before departing Hampton Roads on 1 August, bound for her new base of operations, Recife.
Screened by O'Toole and Edgar G. Chase, the escort carrier proceeded south until 1 August, when O'Toole developed a sonar contact and gave chase. Aircraft from Tripoli laid patterns of sonobuoys at the initial contact point and dropped smoke floats and float lights on an oil slick. Picking up the "scent", O'Toole straddled the floats with her Hedgehog projectiles and depth charges and soon radioed victoriously "We hit the rodent!" A brief visual examination of the evidence - debris and a large quantity of diesel oil - satisfied the hunter-killer group that they had indeed sunk an enemy submarine. However, a post-war examination of German records did not confirm the kill. As night fell, Tripoli vectored two aircraft to another sonar contact by O'Toole, and four depth bombs were dropped - keeping another U-boat down and running.
Tripoli and her group then returned to Recife on 13 August, and reported for duty with Admiral Jonas H. Ingram's 4th Fleet. Designated as the center of TG 47.7, the escort carrier put to sea on 22 August with the four destroyer escorts of CortDiv 24 to operate against a homeward-bound German submarine estimated to pass at 25° south latitude and 5° west longitude.
After a fruitless search pursuing two fading sonar contacts in the mid-South Atlantic narrows, Tripoli and her group returned to Recife on 11 September for provisioning and fuelling. Underway again two days later, TG 47.7 headed out to conduct another search - this time along the estimated track of two U-boats slated to rendezvous for refuelling. One of the target U-boats was U-1062, bound from Penang, British Malaya with a cargo of valuable petroleum products for the German war effort. Ordered to fuelU-219, outward-bound for the Far East, U-1062 prepared to rendezvous with her smaller sister boat in the South Atlantic narrows - directly in the path of the Tripoli escort group.
Passing to the westward of the Cape Verdes, TG 47.7 made rendezvous with Mission Bay's escort group to conduct a joint hunter-killer operation against the two enemy boats. Round-the-clock searches by radar-equipped Avengers continued until 40 minutes after sunset on 28 September, when an Avenger piloted by Lieutenant William R. Gillespie reported a definite contact with the surfaced U-219 only 11 miles from the enemy's estimated track.
Gillespie went in to conduct a low-level rocket attack, but was shot down by heavy flak. Another Avenger, drawn to the battle, braved the flak to conduct another rocket run and also dropped depth bombs, while a Wildcat strafed the U-boat which struggled desperately to dodge the harassing attacks by the American aircraft.
U-219 emerged from the firefight unscathed, but U-1062 did not enjoy similar good fortune. Fessenden, one of Mission Bay's screen, homed in on sonobuoy indications on 30 September and sank the "Milch Cow" with a four-charge pattern. In the meantime, U-219 was not yet home free - one of Tripoli's Avengers dropped depth bombs on the fleeing boat on 2 October. American sonar-men felt that they had definitely "killed" the U-boat, but post-war accounting showed that U-219 had escaped to Batavia, Java.
When fuel supplies ran low, Tripoli returned to Recife on 12 October. She conducted one further search of the narrows from 26 October-12 November before heading for a much-needed overhaul at Norfolk. Subsequently, the escort carrier sailed for the Pacific and, after transiting the Panama Canal and touching at San Diego, arrived at Pearl Harbor on 10 January 1945.
Pacific
Tripoli transferred Composite Squadron 8 ashore to conduct operations from
Arriving at San Diego on 29 August, with 500 Navy veterans, Tripoli returned to
Korean War
The outbreak of the Korean War in the summer of 1950 resulted in the return of many of the Navy's reserve ships to active service to support American operations in the Far East. Accordingly, Tripoli was recommissioned at New York on 5 January 1952. Assigned to the Military Sealift Command (MSC), Atlantic Area, the former "hunter-killer" began her new career as an aircraft transport and ferry.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/USS_Tripoli_%28CVE-64%29_transporting_F-84s_in_the_1950s.jpg/220px-USS_Tripoli_%28CVE-64%29_transporting_F-84s_in_the_1950s.jpg)
Over the next six years, Tripoli conducted 44 transport voyages, mostly to European and Mediterranean ports, but with one visit to Hawaii and two to the Far East. Following the ship's third voyage to Europe, Tripoli was berthed at the Port Newark Terminal on 5 August 1952, where she loaded 45
At Alameda May 1954, fifty F-86D aircraft were loaded on board Tripoli and cocooned for a 21-day trip thru the Panama Canal to St Nazaire, France. 13 June approx 500 US Air Force personnel of the 440th FIS from Spokane WA and 441st FIS from Hamilton AFB in San Francisco, CA boarded the ship. One source identifies the units as the
Receiving "smart ship" awards from in the intervening years, Tripoli was reclassified a utility carrier and redesignated CVU-64 on 12 June 1955. Again redesignated T-CVU-64 on 1 July 1958, Tripoli was decommissioned at New Orleans, La., on 25 November 1958 and subsequently struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 February 1959. Her hull then scrapped by a Japanese firm in January 1960.
References
- ^ "Tripoli I (CVE-64)".
- ^ United Press, "Interceptor Fighters on Way To Europe", San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, San Bernardino, California, Sunday 6 June 1954, Volume VIII, Number 9, page 2.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
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- Photo gallery at navsource.org