USS Greenlet (ASR-10) was a Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

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Greenlet was laid down by Moore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Co.

Moore Dry Dock Company

Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and shipbuilding company in Oakland, California. It was started in San Francisco in 1905 as the Moore & Scott Iron Works, but was destroyed by fire in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It reopened soon and in 1909 purchased the Boole Shipyard in Oakland....

, Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, 15 October 1941; launched 12 July 1942; sponsored by Mrs. B. P. Flood ; and commissioned 29 May 1943, Comdr. F. W. Laing in command.

World War II

After shakedown, Greenlet conducted patrol and escort runs out of San Diego before sailing for Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...

 24 July. Constructed as a submarine

Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 rescue ship, she served at Pearl Harbor and at Midway

Midway Atoll

Midway Atoll is a atoll in the North Pacific Ocean, near the northwestern end of the Hawaiian archipelago, about one-third of the way between Honolulu, Hawaii, and Tokyo, Japan. Unique among the Hawaiian islands, Midway observes UTC-11 , eleven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and one hour...

 for more than a year, making escort runs and conducting refresher training for patrol-bound submarines. As the progress of the war advanced steadily across the Pacific, she sailed to Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

 21 December 1944 to carry out submarine training closer to the patrol areas.

While at Midway and Guam, Greenlet helped train some 215 submarines, among them such boats as , , , , , and . Indirectly, she contributed to the sinking of 794 enemy ships, including a battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 and six aircraft carrier

Aircraft carrier

An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

s. Eleven of the submarines trained by Greenlet were lost during the war, but her charges sank more than 2,797,000 tons of Japanese military and merchant shipping.

As the war in the Pacific drew to a close, Greenlet departed Guam for Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 16 August 1945. She reached Sagami Wan

Sagami Bay

Sagami Bay , also known as the Sagami Gulf or Sagami Sea, lies south of Kanagawa Prefecture in Honshū, central Japan, contained within the scope of the Miura Peninsula, in Kanagawa, to the east, the Izu Peninsula, in Shizuoka Prefecture, to the west, and the Shōnan coastline to the north, while the...

, Honshū

Honshu

is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...

, 28 August; entered Tokyo Bay

Tokyo Bay

is a bay in the southern Kantō region of Japan. Its old name was .-Geography:Tokyo Bay is surrounded by the Bōsō Peninsula to the east and the Miura Peninsula to the west. In a narrow sense, Tokyo Bay is the area north of the straight line formed by the on the Miura Peninsula on one end and on...

 the following day; and was present during the signing of the Japanese surrender

Surrender of Japan

The surrender of Japan in 1945 brought hostilities of World War II to a close. By the end of July 1945, the Imperial Japanese Navy was incapable of conducting operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent...

 2 September. After placing buoy

Buoy

A buoy is a floating device that can have many different purposes. It can be anchored or allowed to drift. The word, of Old French or Middle Dutch origin, is now most commonly in UK English, although some orthoepists have traditionally prescribed the pronunciation...

s over wrecks in the harbor and channel at Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, she stripped and demilitarized Japanese miniature submarines based in Yokosuka harbor. On 1 November she escorted three Japanese fleet submarines to Sasebo

Sasebo, Nagasaki

is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. As of 2011, the city has an estimated population of 259,800 and the density of 609 persons per km². The total area is 426.47 km². The locality is famed for its scenic beauty. The city includes a part of Saikai National Park...

 and converted them for American crews. Departing Sasebo 11 December, she escorted former Japanese submarines 1-1.4, I-400

I-400 class submarine

The Imperial Japanese Navy submarines were the largest submarines of World War II and remained the largest ever built until the construction of nuclear ballistic missile submarines in the 1960s. They were submarine aircraft carriers able to carry three Aichi M6A Seiran aircraft underwater to their...

, and to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived via Guam and Eniwetok 6 January 1946.

After returning to San Francisco early in 1946, Greenlet spent the following five years operating primarily out of San Diego where she trained divers and serviced submarines. From September 1946 to May 1947 and from September 1948 to March 1949 she deployed to the Western Pacific. Operating from the coast of China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 to the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, she trained and supported fleet submarines stationed in the Far East.

Korea and Vietnam

On the outbreak of the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...

 Greenlet departed San Diego for the Far East 6 July 1950. During the next six months she operated out of Yokosuka while providing valuable services to the submarine fleet. Sailing for Pearl Harbor 6 January 1951, she served there throughout the remainder of the Korean War and continued to provide assistance in the training of submarine crews.

After the Korean Armistice of 1953, Greenlet remained at Pearl Harbor, training divers and submariners, participating in readiness operations, and assisting in servicing and salvaging operations. On 29 May 1958 she unsuccessfully attempted to keep afloat after its being rammed during exercises off Oahu, Hawaii.

Between 1953 and 1970 Greenlet made ten deployments to the Western Pacific. Operating from Japan and Okinawa to the Philippines and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, she rendered training and repair services to submarines, trained divers, and participated in mine recovery and submarine rescue and salvage exercises. During rescue training duty 6 January 1964, she sent her submarine rescue chamber to a depth of 942 feet off the coast of Japan.

In 1965 she took charge or rescuing the destroyer USS Frank Knox. The destroyer had run aground on to Pratus Reef. A severe storm followed that further anchored the ship to the reef. It took the USS Greenlet, with her divers, and Fleet tugs about 40 days to finally pull the destroyer off the reef. The USS Frank Knox was then towed to a dry dock in Yokosuka Japan for repairs. USS Greenlet crew members, ENFN Fred Elliott, were assigned to assist on repairs.

During Greenlet's final deployment to WestPac in 1969-70, she was ordered to the Gulf of Tonkin

Gulf of Tonkin

The Gulf of Tonkin is an arm of the South China Sea, lying off the coast of northeastern Vietnam.-Etymology:The name Tonkin, written "東京" in Hán tự and Đông Kinh in romanised Vietnamese, means "Eastern Capital", and is the former toponym for Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam...

 to salvage a Grumman C-2 aircraft that has crashed with 26 persons on board and sunk in 290 feet of water. Greenlet assumed command of salvage operations on 22 October until 19 November. After 47 dives the salvage operations was terminated due to deteriorating weather. The Greenlet was awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation and the Vietnam Service Medal for the Fall and Winter Campaigns of 1969.

At Pearl Harbor Naval Submarine Base on 12 June 1970, Lt A. J. Trinka, in command the Greenlet was decommissioned and transferred to the Republic of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

for commissioning as TCG Akin (A-585), CDR Necdet Donertas, Commanding Officer.