USS Cossatot (AO-77) was a 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...

 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...

 Type T2-SE-A1

T2 tanker

The T2 tanker, or T2, was an oil tanker constructed and produced in large quantities in the United States during World War II. The largest "navy oilers" after the T3s at the time, nearly 500 of them were built between 1940 and the end of 1945....

 tanker which served as a fleet oiler. Launched as SS Fort Necessity on 28 February 1943 by the Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Chester, Pennsylvania

Chester, Pennsylvania

Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...

, under a Maritime Commission contract; sponsored by Mrs. W. Taylor; acquired by the Navy on 17 March 1943; and commissioned on 20 April 1943 Commander P. G. Beck, USNR, in command. It was named for a river

Cossatot River

The Cossatot River is an river in the U.S. state Arkansas.Cossatot comes from the French cassé-tête which translates roughly to skull crusher...

 in Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

.

World War II

Sailing from Norfolk

Norfolk, Virginia

Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....

 to Baytown, Texas

Baytown, Texas

Baytown is a city within Harris County and partially in Chambers County in the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. state of Texas. Located within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area, it lies along both State Highway 146 and Interstate 10. As of 2010, Baytown had an population of 71,802...

, to load kerosene

Kerosene

Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...

, gasoline

Gasoline

Gasoline , or petrol , is a toxic, translucent, petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines. It consists mostly of organic compounds obtained by the fractional distillation of petroleum, enhanced with a variety of additives. Some gasolines also contain...

, and fuel oil

Fuel oil

Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...

 in July 1943, Cossatot sailed from Norfolk on 6 August to fuel convoy escorts during their passage to Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

, returning to Norfolk on 14 September. She made seven such voyages from Norfolk to the North African ports of Casablanca, Oran

Oran

Oran is a major city on the northwestern Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and the second largest city of the country.It is the capital of the Oran Province . The city has a population of 759,645 , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately 1,500,000, making it the second largest...

, and Bizerte

Bizerte

Bizerte or Benzert , is the capital city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia and the northernmost city in Africa. It has a population of 230,879 .-History:...

 between 4 October 1943 and 30 November 1944.

Cossatot put to sea from Norfolk again on 28 December 1944 bound for the Pacific. She loaded diesel oil, fuel oil, and gasoline at Aruba

Aruba

Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...

, Netherlands West Indies, and arrived at 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...

 on 30 January 1946. She operated from Saipan from 12 February fueling ships of the 6th Fleet until 3 March, when she began operations from Ulithi

Ulithi

Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the largest in the world. It is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of...

. Cossatot sortied as a part of TG 60.8, the logistics group for the 6th Fleet, for operations off Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima

Iwo Jima, officially , is an island of the Japanese Volcano Islands chain, which lie south of the Ogasawara Islands and together with them form the Ogasawara Archipelago. The island is located south of mainland Tokyo and administered as part of Ogasawara, one of eight villages of Tokyo...

 from 13 March to 12 April. On 16 April she sailed with her group to conduct fueling operations off newly assaulted Okinawa. On 28 April she splashed a suicide plane as it dove toward her, and remained on this duty unscathed until 4 May when she arrived at Ulithi to reload. From 26 May until the end of the War, Cossatot operated out of Ulithi fueling various units of fast carrier TF 38, engaged in the final strikes against the Japanese homeland.

Cossatot left Ulithi on 3 September for Okinawa and 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...

, arriving on 21 September to fuel ships of the occupation force. On 12 November she sailed from Yokosuka for San Francisco, arriving on 26 November.

Cossatot received two battle stars

Service star

A service star, also referred to as a battle star, campaign star, or engagement star, is an attachment to a United States military decoration which denotes participation in military campaigns or multiple bestowals of the same award. Service stars are typically issued for campaign medals, service...

 for World War II service.

Post-war

Cossatot was placed out of commission in reserve 7 March 1946 and transferred to the Maritime Commission on 28 October 1946. Reacquired in February 1948, she was transferred to the Military Sea Transportation Service on 1 October 1949 where she has served in a noncommissioned status under the Maritime Administration.

While underway 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...

 on 16 April 1963 Cossatot reported seeing an unidentified flying object

Unidentified flying object

A term originally coined by the military, an unidentified flying object is an unusual apparent anomaly in the sky that is not readily identifiable to the observer as any known object...

 on a straight and fast course in the skies. It was described as glowing, and star-like, and on a trajectory at about 20 degrees and an altitude around 20000 feet (6,096 m). No investigation was put forward.

According to Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 records, on 15 June 1968 Cossatot was damaged after a collision with the merchant vessel Copper State, in fog

Fog

Fog is a collection of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. While fog is a type of stratus cloud, the term "fog" is typically distinguished from the more generic term "cloud" in that fog is low-lying, and the moisture in the fog is often generated...

, off the coast of Santa Cruz, California

Santa Cruz, California

Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California in the US. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, Santa Cruz had a total population of 59,946...

. Cossatot was carrying 130000 barrels (20,668.3 m³) of jet fuel

Jet fuel

Jet fuel is a type of aviation fuel designed for use in aircraft powered by gas-turbine engines. It is clear to straw-colored in appearance. The most commonly used fuels for commercial aviation are Jet A and Jet A-1 which are produced to a standardized international specification...

and lost 20 feet (6.1 m) of her bow section in this collision. Cossatot was stricken on 18 September 1974 and sold 2 September 1975. No further information is available after this date.

External links

• The T2 Tanker Page