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USS Porcupine (IX-126)
Encyclopedia
USS Porcupine (IX-126), an Armadillo-class tanker
Armadillo class tanker
The Armadillo class of tankers were those Type Z-ET1-S-C3 Liberty tankers that were commissioned into the United States Navy. They were given the hull classification symbols of unclassified miscellaneous vessels....
(aka Z-ET1-S-C3 class Liberty Ship Tanker) designated an unclassified miscellaneous vessel
Unclassified miscellaneous vessel
The IX hull classification symbol is used for ships of the United States Navy that do not fit into one of the standard categories...
, was the second ship of 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...
to be named for the porcupine
Porcupine
Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend or camouflage them from predators. They are indigenous to the Americas, southern Asia, and Africa. Porcupines are the third largest of the rodents, behind the capybara and the beaver. Most porcupines are about long, with...
.
A station tanker, her keel was laid down 11 October 1943 as SS Leif Ericson (MCE Hull 1930) by the Delta Shipbuilding Corporation in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
. She was named Porcupine on 23 October, launched
Ship naming and launching
The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...
on 24 November, accepted by the Navy 29 December; and commissioned
Ship commissioning
Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...
the next day with Lieutenant Daniel M. Paul in command. After shakedown in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
, the new Liberty ship
Liberty ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by...
was assigned mobile oil storage duties with the Service Force, Pacific Fleet. Transiting the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, she arrived Noumea
Nouméa
Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...
, New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
on 28 March and commenced fuel storage and transportation operations in the area of Nouméa, Langemak Bay
Langemak Bay
Langemak Bay is a bay north of Finschhafen, on the north east coast of Papua New Guinea. Langemak Bay saw extensive naval operations in World War II, including a landing beach at the western end of the bay for the embarkation of the 2/24th Australian Infantry Battalion....
, and Milne Bay
Milne Bay
Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, southeastern Papua New Guinea. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.The area was a site of the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942....
, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
; and Seeadler Harbor
Seeadler Harbor
Seeadler Harbor, also known as Port Seeadler, is located on Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea and played an important role in World War II...
, Manus
Manus Island
Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest island of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth largest island in Papua New Guinea with an area of 2,100 km², measuring around 100 km × 30 km. According to the 2000 census, Manus Island had a...
, Admiralty Islands
Admiralty Islands
The Admiralty Islands are a group of eighteen islands in the Bismarck Archipelago, to the north of New Guinea in the south Pacific Ocean. These are also sometimes called the Manus Islands, after the largest island. These rainforest-covered islands form part of Manus Province, the smallest and...
. By the end of November she was at Hollandia
Jayapura
Jayapura City is the capital of Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. It is situated on Yos Sudarso Bay . Its approximate population in 2002 was 200,000....
, New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
, and during the last days of 1944 she was a unit of resupply convoy "Uncle plus 15," which formed off Dulag
Dulag, Leyte
Dulag is a third-class municipality in the province of Leyte in Eastern Visayas in the Philippines. This coastal town covering 11,007 hectares of land is home to 44,143 residents...
, 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...
, on 27 December and steamed up Leyte Gulf
Leyte Gulf
Leyte Gulf is a body of water immediately east of the island of Leyte in the Philippines, adjoining the Philippine Sea of the Pacific Ocean, at . The Gulf is bounded on the north by the island of Samar, which is separated from Leyte on the west by the narrow San Juanico Strait, and on the south by...
for Mindoro
Mindoro
Mindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It is located off the coast of Luzon, and northeast of Palawan. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.-History:...
. The one hundred vessels of the convoy, under the command of Captain J. B. McLean, were screened by nine destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
s.
From 0330, 28 December, when the convoy entered Surigao Strait
Surigao Strait
Surigao Strait is a body of water in the Philippines located between the islands of Mindanao and Leyte. This strait connects the Bohol Sea with Leyte Gulf and is regularly crossed by ferries that transport goods and people between Visayas and Mindanao...
, until it returned to Leyte
Leyte Island
Leyte is an island in the Visayas group of the Philippines.The island measures about 180 km north-south and about 65 km at its widest point. In the north it nearly joins Samar, separated by the San Juanico Strait, which becomes as narrow as 2 km in some places...
, it was either under air attack, or hostile aircraft were held on its radars. With sunrise came the report that weather at Leyte was so foul that no Combat Air Patrol (CAP) could come out. Thus no air cover was available until after noon. But the weather was altogether too fair in the waters plowed by the convoy. At 1012 two groups of three planes each from Cebu
Cebu
Cebu is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands. It is located to the east of Negros, to the west of Leyte and Bohol islands...
attacked. One aircraft was immediately splashed, and another, which attempted to crash into aviation-gasoline laden Porcupine, overshot its target, and splashed into the sea. Liberty ships William Sharon and John Burke were less fortunate. Both were crashed, and Burke went down with a mighty explosion. Sharon’s superstructure was a mass of flame. Firefighters from USS Wilson (DD-408)
USS Wilson (DD-408)
USS Wilson , a , was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for Charles Wilson, a seaman in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.-History:...
finally extinguished the fires, and salvage tug
Salvage tug
A salvage tug is a specialized type of tugboat which is used to rescue or marine salvage ships which are in distress or in danger of sinking, or which have already sunk or run aground....
USS Grapple (ARS-7)
USS Grapple (ARS-7)
USS Grapple was an Diver-class rescue and salvage ship commissioned by the U.S. Navy for service in World War II. She was responsible for coming to the aid of stricken vessels....
towed Sharon back to Leyte. Thus Mindoro never received Sharon's cargo of TNT, fuel, trucks, rations, and beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
.
Mangarin Bay
Mangarin Bay is situated to the east of Mangarin Point, on the west coast of Mindoro, among the Philippine Islands. The bay is shoal and sheltered from the wind by the point and Ilin Island. Magarin point terminates in a long sandy pit off which the depth is 4 to 5 fathoms. Farther in the water...
on 30 December at 0710. Captain McLean was eager to offload his ships and head back to Leyte before dark. Until 1540 events ran smoothly, but then five Vals
Aichi D3A
The , Allied reporting name "Val") was a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy . It was the primary dive bomber in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and participated in almost all actions, including Pearl Harbor....
broke through and made a suicide attack. Within two minutes destroyers USS Gansevoort (DD-608)
USS Gansevoort (DD-608)
USS Gansevoort was a Benson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Commodore Guert Gansevoort....
and USS Pringle (DD-477)
USS Pringle (DD-477)
USS Pringle , a , was a ship of the United States Navy named for Vice Admiral Joel R. P. Pringle .Pringle was laid down by the Charleston Navy Yard, on 31 July 1941; launched on 2 May 1942, sponsored by Mrs. John D. H. Kane; and commissioned on 15 September 1942, with Lieutenant Commander Harold O...
, tender USS Orestes (AGP-10)
USS Orestes (AGP-10)
USS Orestes was a motor torpedo boat tender that served in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946.Orestes was laid down as landing ship tank USS LST–135 at Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, Seneca, Illinois, on 8 July 1943, and launched on 16 November 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Bernard Sharp...
, and Porcupine were hit. Porcupine was hit off White Beach by a low flyer which came in off her port bow. She opened fire with all guns, but was unable to divert the attacking Val from its course. The kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
released a bomb over Porcupine’s main deck and crashed in after it. Seven Porcupine sailors died and eight were wounded. Fuel tanks ruptured; the engine room flooded, and the plane's engine passed through the ship's hull, tearing a large hole beneath her water line. Gansevoort, surviving her hit, was towed toward the PT base at Caminavit Point and anchored in 15 fathoms of water. She was soon ordered to blow off Porcupine’s stern in order to prevent flames from reaching the aviation gasoline. One of the destroyer's torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...
es slammed into Porcupine but the flames were not stemmed. The aviation gasoline ignited, and Porcupine burned to the water line. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register
Naval Vessel Register
The Naval Vessel Register is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and...
on 19 January 1945.