I discovered some history on several U.S. Navy ships named after our local rivers. A pair of East Texas rivers were namesakes of several U.S. Navy ships. Two oilers bore the name USS Neches. The first, (AO-5) was built in 1920 in Boston. Stationed on the East Coast, the vessel was in the Gulf of Mexico for excercises in 1922 and while there steamed to Port Arthur for oil and gasoline. The Neches was then transferred to the West Coast. It was heading for Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. A Japanese submarine torpedoed the Neches in January 1942 and the oiler was abandoned about 140 miles west of Pearl Harbor. Fifty-seven sailors lost their lives. An oiler launched later in 1942 from Chester, Penn., was named the second USS Neches. The AO-47 also delivered fuel to Pacific vessels. The second Neches struck a mine off the coast of California and returned to duty after a week in drydock. The ship later served in major Pacific invasions including those in the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Neches was decommissioned during the Korean War and was later recommissisoned during the Vietnam War. In a bit of irony, the Neches was involved in a collision during Vietnam operations with the USS Orleck. The destroyer Orleck was built during WWII in Orange and upon its decommissioning served as a Greek warship before it was towed back to Orange with hopes of the Orleck becoming a museum. The latter happened, although it is now berthed in Lake Charles as a museum ship. The second Neches was decommissioned and sold for scrap in 1973. Like its neighboring river Neches, the Sabine also had two U.S. naval ships named after it. The first was a sailing ship that engaged in early gunboat diplomacy in Paraguay in the 1850s. The ship also served as a union vessel in the Civil War. It became a training ship for midshipmen in 1864 and was sold to an individual in 1883. The second Sabine (AO-25) was also a fleet oiler, built in Maryland by Bethlehem Shipbuilding. It was launched in 1940. The Sabines early contribution in the war was helping fuel the ships and planes used by Doolittles Raiders to bomb Tokyo. In 1943 the ship saw action off Alaskas Aleutian Islands, and off South Pacific islands including New Hebredies and the Solomons. The Sabine later served in the Marshall Island, Marianas and the Leyte Gulf campaigns. After the war the Sabine was transferred to the Military Sea Transport Service. It laid up for awhile at the mothball fleet facility on the Neches River near Beaumont. Later, the ship was recommissioned and served in the blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis as well as in the Dominican crisis. The long-serving vessel was struck from the Navy list in 1976 and was sold in 1983. (Below: The USS Sabine refuels the cruiser Albany in 1967.)
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 23:56:15 +0000
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