USS Aloe (AN-6/YN-1) was an which was assigned to serve U.S. Navy ships and harbors during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 with her protective anti-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...

 nets.

Built in Washington

Aloe (YN-1) was laid down on 14 October 1940 at Houghton, Washington

Houghton, Washington

Houghton is one of the lakeside neighborhoods of the city of Kirkland, Washington. Consisting mostly of upscale, single-family homes, Houghton overlooks Lake Washington and is one of the wealthier districts of the Eastside suburbs of Seattle. The village was named for Willard Houghton, a local...

, by the Lake Washington Shipyard

Lake Washington Shipyard

Lake Washington Shipyards was a shipyard in Houghton, Washington on the shore of Lake Washington. Today the shipyards are the site of the lakeside Carillon Point business park...

; launched on 11 January 1941; and placed "in service" on 11 June 1941, Lt. (j.g.) Harry R. Shawk, USNR, in charge.

World War II service

Allocated to the 12th Naval District, the net tender operated in a non-commissioned status in the San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, area from the summer of 1941 to the winter of 1942, tending and laying the antisubmarine nets and booms protecting the waters of that important region.

Assigned to the South Pacific

Commissioned on 30 December 1942, Lt. Donald B. Howard, USNR, in command, Aloe departed San Francisco on 22 January 1943, bound 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...

. Routed thence to 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...

, she reached 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,...

 on 18 March. Six days later, she got underway and proceeded via the New Hebrides

New Hebrides

New Hebrides was the colonial name for an island group in the South Pacific that now forms the nation of Vanuatu. The New Hebrides were colonized by both the British and French in the 18th century shortly after Captain James Cook visited the islands...

, to the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

.

The net tender spent the remainder of the war in the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

, laying and tending torpedo nets and buoys, and conducting various salvage and towing operations. She ranged from New Caledonia to Okinawa and included the Solomon Islands, the Mariana Islands

Mariana Islands

The Mariana Islands are an arc-shaped archipelago made up by the summits of 15 volcanic mountains in the north-western Pacific Ocean between the 12th and 21st parallels north and along the 145th meridian east...

, the Marshall Islands

Marshall Islands

The Republic of the Marshall Islands , , is a Micronesian nation of atolls and islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the International Date Line and just north of the Equator. As of July 2011 the population was 67,182...

, and the Palau Islands in her itinerary. During this time, she was reclassified as a net layer, on 31 January 1944, her hull number becoming AN-6 on that date.

While perhaps pedestrian, Aloe's duties were, nevertheless, vital and certainly not without hazard , as was dramatically demonstrated soon after she arrived in the Solomons in the spring of 1943.

Under attack at Tulagi

On 7 April of that year, she lay moored to the Sturgis Dock, Tulagi

Tulagi

Tulagi, less commonly Tulaghi, is a small island in the Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Florida Island. The town of the same name on the island Tulagi, less commonly Tulaghi, is a small island (5.5 km by 1 km) in the Solomon Islands, just off the south coast of Florida...

, when 67 "Vals" (Aichi D3A2 dive bomber

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....

s), escorted by 110 "Zero" fighters

A6M Zero

The Mitsubishi A6M Zero was a long-range fighter aircraft operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service from 1940 to 1945. The A6M was designated as the , and also designated as the Mitsubishi A6M Rei-sen and Mitsubishi Navy 12-shi Carrier Fighter. The A6M was usually referred to by the...

—all but a very few of which had been drawn from the complements of four Japanese 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—arrived to attack the shipping in the harbor there. The raid was a part of Admiral Yamamoto's Operation "I"—a series of massive air attacks aimed at American positions in the Solomons. Obviously interested in bigger game, the Japanese planes left Aloe alone, sinking 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...

  and an oiler

Replenishment Oiler

A replenishment oiler or fleet tanker is a naval auxiliary ship with fuel tanks and dry cargo holds, which can replenish other ships while underway in the high seas. Such ships are used by several countries around the world....

 and damaging a second oiler and cargo ship

Cargo ship

A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...

. Nevertheless, the net tender, with her solitary 3-inch gun and her four .50-caliber machine guns, contributed to the antiaircraft barrage that helped to drive the attackers off, claiming one "Val" shot down, another "possibly" splashed, and a third "damaged."

Shooting down enemy planes in the Marianas

A little over a year later, Aloe next encountered the enemy during Operation "Forager" -- the occupation of the Marianas. While in Task Group (TG) 53.16 on 18 June 1944, the net-layer was cruising east of 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...

 when Japanese planes attacked at 17:59. Utilizing local control and observing excellent fire discipline, Aloe's 20-milhmeter and .50-caliber batteries scored hits on three enemy planes. Two of these Japanese aircraft crashed and the third departed the area in flames.

Her last action with enemy planes came on 28 May 1945, while she was anchored in Nakagusuku Wan, Okinawa, serving as part of Net and Buoy Unit 3 (Task Unit 32.8.3). During that morning, she took a suicider

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....

 under fire with all her guns as the kamikaze made a dive on the anchorage.

Damaged in a typhoon

War's end in August 1945, found Aloe still at Okinawa. While her battle with the Japanese may have been over, there were still the "elements" with which to contend. On 9 October 1945, a typhoon swept across Okinawa. During the storm, Snowbell (AN-52)

USS Snowbell (AN-52)

USS Snowbell was a which served the U.S. Navy during World War II. She operated in the Pacific Ocean until she was destroyed by Typhoon Louise off Okinawa, 9 October 1945.- Career :...

 inflicted minor damage on Aloe when the former drifted down on her. Snowbell's stern collided with Aloe's starboard bow and ripped a hole below the main deck level five feet long.

Post-war inactivation

Returning to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in the spring of 1946 via Saipan

Saipan

Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...

, Guam, the Marshalls, and Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, Aloe commenced her pre-inactivation overhaul at Swan Island

Overlook, Portland, Oregon

Overlook is a neighborhood in the North section of Portland, Oregon on the east shore of the Willamette River. It borders University Park and Arbor Lodge on the north, Humboldt and Boise on the east, Eliot on the southeast, and Northwest Industrial and the Northwest District across the Willamette...

, Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, on 3 June 1946.

Decommissioned on 3 August 1946 and placed in reserve on 26 September 1946, the net tender remained in the Columbia River

Columbia River

The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada, flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state...

 Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet, through the 1950s. Her name was stricken on 9 October 1962. Laid up in the U.S. Maritime Administration

U.S. Maritime Administration

The United States Maritime Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation that maintains the National Defense Reserve Fleet as a ready source of ships for use during national emergencies, and assists the NDRF in fulfilling its role as the nation's fourth arm of...

 berthing area at Olympia, Washington

Olympia, Washington

Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...

, the ship was sold on 14 May 1971 to I. D. Logan and was scrapped.

The USS Aloe is featured in a mural depicting the history of the Houghton area of Kirkland, Washington

Kirkland, Washington

Kirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a suburb of Seattle on the Eastside . The population was 48,787 at the 2010 census makes it the 9th largest city in King County and the 20th largest city in the state...

.