Report from the USS Collingsworth APA-146

REPORT FROM THE

USS Collingsworth APA-146

By: Theodor M. Hanft, Jr. BM2c

Haskell Class
Attack Transport

Partial History of the USS Collingsworth (APA-146)

The Collingsworth was of no particular significance to the outcome of War II except that it was the assignment that four of the 4^th Beachers got after the 4^th Beach Battalion was returned from Europe to the United States. Those great veterans of the 4^th Beach were Ted Hanft BM2c, Ed McDevitt PhM2c, Steve Meszaros SF3c and Melton Van Poole SM2c. In all fairness to the Collingsworth, she would have played a role in the invasion of the Japanese home islands if Harry Truman had not approved the A-bombing of Japan. Now, in retrospect, we know that many of us would not have survived such an amphibious operation.

The Collingsworth was commissioned on February 27, 1945 at Astoria Oregon. Her mission was to transport assault troops in an amphibious operation to the beachheads of what ever enemy held land was in the Allied battle plan. After the shake down cruise and many training operations, which included a trip to Hawaii with training maneuvers off the island of Maui and back to the shipyard in Everett WA for repairs and modifications, the Collingsworth got underway from Seattle WA on June 27^th with a load of troops bound for Guam. After Guam, the next destinations were Siapan and the Ulithi Atoll. The A-bomb was dropped on Japan while at Ulithi. The next stop was Okinawa where the invasion fleet was being mustered for Operation Olympic and Coronet. The target would be the home islands of Japan. Japan surrendered on September 2^nd. Three days later the Collingsworth was part of a 45 ship convoy transporting occupation troops to Japanese occupied Korea. Then back to Okinawa.

Ed McDevitt was transferred off the ship to the base hospital on Okinawa in time to experience the ravage of the typhoon that devastated the island. Here, units of the 1^st Marine Division were loaded aboard for transportation to Tengku China where they would they would trek to Tientsin and Peiping to occupy the same barracks that were occupied by the 4^th Marines before their withdrawal to Manila four years previous. The Marines had maintained the Legation Guards in Peiping since the Boxer War in 1905 and in Teintsin since 1938.

The ship left the Tengku-Tientsin area bound for the Philippines and availability in the yards at Subic Bay. The fourth day out, a weather report from Guam told of a typhoon located south of Okinawa and moving north. A course change was made to try to avoid the heavy weather. Even though the ship was 325 miles from the storm center, wind velocities of up to 40 knots and heavy rolling and pitching were experienced. No one was allowed top side. So much time was lost in beating the storm that the availability in Subic was lost and the ship put into Manila Bay for a week. This typhoon was the one that ripped Okinawa apart. Ed McDevitt said in later years that he was more scared during that storm than anything that he experienced in the 4^th Beach Battalion.

The next order for the Collingsworth was to proceed to Kowloon (Hong Kong Bay) China. Here, about 1850 troops of the 13^th Chinese Army were loaded aboard. The ship then joined a convoy of other APA’s and headed for Chinwangtao, China where the troops would reoccupy northern China. After returning to Kowloon, the ship again took on Chinese units, this time from the Eighth Army. Underway, the heading was north, this time for Tsingtao, China where the troops would reoccupy the Shantung peninsula. It has been suggested in later years that these troops might have been part of the forces that fought against us in the Korean war.

On November 15^th all personnel in the Beach Landing Party were transferred to ships company. Later, sailing orders were received to proceed to Jinsen (Inchon) Korea. The Collingsworth was then assigned to the “Magic Carpet” to take high point men home for discharge. 1500 men representing a cross section of the Armed Forces, sailors, soldiers, air corp. personnel, military police, Red Cross representatives and correspondents for the United Press were loaded aboard for a 5600 mile trip home. The course was the great northern route from Korea to Seattle. After 21 days of rolling in the trough and fighting heavy seas, the ship arrived in Seattle on the 15^th of December 1945.

Ted Hanft and Melton Van Poole were transferred off the ship for discharge. Hanft was discharged in Bremerton, WA and Van Poole was sent to Norfolk, VA for discharge. No one seems to remember when Steve Meszaros left the ship, but it’s fair to say that he got home like the rest of the 4^th Beachers. The Collingsworth stayed in Seattle until after the first of the year in 1946 and then with a skeleton crew, sailed the ship down to and through the Panama Canal to the east coast where she was decommissioned on the March 18,1946.