Combat Loaded: Across the Pacific on the USS Tate

Preface

PREFACE One of the traditions of my baby-boomer childhood was my father giving me a navy haircut while I sat on a wooden bench in our basement. In the short time it took to buzzcut my brother and me, Dad often treated us to a story about his World War II service in the Pacific. Hanging on the wall near where we lost our hair was a framed shellback certificate he had earned when his ship crossed the equator. Decorating the margin were magnificent sea creatures, bare-bosomed mermaids, and a raging King Neptune stating that the USS Tate (AKA-70) had entered his royal domain on a “Secret Mission of War.” My father downplayed this phrase, which preyed heavily on my young imagination, by saying things like “We were hauling beef and toilet paper in the Pacific.” In 1988 I found myself crossing the equator for the first time as my shipmates dipped me in garbage, flogged me with wet hoses, and abused me in ways the uninitiated can never appreciate. During that sleepless night, I thought back with pride to my father’s wartime shellback stories. After winning the drag beauty contest and being crowned Queen of the Wogs, I realized that my father had left out many of the saltier details of this classic seafaring rite of passage. Years later, when casually researching Tate, I discovered that much of the ship’s history was on the verge of being lost forever. Like the tale of the equator crossing, my father’s war stories had often omitted many relevant details . Through a combination of the fog of war, the characteristic detachment of veterans, a professionalism that makes men reluctant to speak of themselves, and the overwhelming scope of the events in the Pacific, this story remained hidden. Tate was an attack cargo (AKA) ship whose mission was to use its boats to land amphibious assault troops in enemy territory and then supply them with combat cargo. Commonly referred to as transports, the AKAs and slightly bigger attack transports (APAs) were the largest of the many types of World War II amphibious warships. After that war, the transports that were not scrapped, xvi PREFACE mothballed, or sold into commercial service continued to serve into the Vietnam era in much the same fashion as they had in World War II. Even after signi ficant modernization, they retained their close-in, hit-the-beach reputation until advances in technology dictated a transformation to amphibious assault ships with over-the-horizon capability. The numerous accounts by the U.S. Navy, U.S. Army, U.S. Coast Guard, and U.S. Marine Corps in World War II relative to amphibious operations rarely weave together the experiences of the different military cultures. Usually there is a sharp transition in these stories at the point when the troops land, making it sound almost as if they were dropped off and forgotten. This is not the truth, but it is a notion sustained by the dearth of World War II literature devoted to joint amphibious operations from the perspective of an individual ship or organizational unit. Most of the studies focus on individual battles and campaigns or their contribution to the doctrinal evolution of amphibious warfare . This story describes amphibious warfare from the perspective of a single attack cargo ship, Tate, a ship built as part of an energized war economy and manned predominantly by mobilized civilians. Any deficiencies in the hastily constructed Tate and her quickly trained crew needed resolving in just a few short weeks before sailing across the Pacific. A ship affectionately referred to by its crew as the Hot Tater, it carried into battle the humorous image of three steaming baked potatoes on its smokestack. Yet, Tate was a ship like every other ship that has sailed to war. At its rails, men stood gazing at the seemingly infinite sea, contemplating their fates, hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst. This story follows the actions of Tate and its crew as part of Transport Squadron 17, which carried the troops of the 77th Infantry Division during the Okinawa campaign. Including the story of the troops fighting ashore and the operations to keep them supplied with combat cargo provides an understanding of the vital role of combat logistics in amphibious warfare. The combination of these two stories provides a rare depiction of World War II amphibious warfare. It was not until 1943...