USS Abnaki (ATF-96) was the lead ship of the of fleet ocean tugs in the service of the United States Navy, named after the Abenaki tribe of Native Americans. She was laid down on 28 November 1942 at Charleston, South Carolina by Charleston Shipbuilding & Drydock, launched on 22 April 1943, sponsored by Mrs. James Mayon Jones, and commissioned at the Charleston Navy Yard on 25 November 1943. Abnaki earned three battle stars for service during the Korean War and 10 battle stars during the Vietnam War.
Operational history 1944–1949 The fleet ocean tug completed shakedown in Chesapeake Bay on 10 December and began operating with the Atlantic Fleet. She conducted towing operations up and down the eastern seaboard of the United States until the spring of 1944. On 12 April, she was in a collision off the Azores with the repair tug USS ATR-98 which resulted in the sinking of the latter.
On 28 May of that year, she got underway from Norfolk, Virginia, bound for Oran, Algeria. On 4 June, however, while in the vicinity of the Azores, Abnaki received orders to rendezvous with Captain Daniel V. Gallery's Task Group (TG) 22.3 built around USS Guadalcanal. That task group had just succeeded in capturing the , and Abnaki was to tow her to Bermuda. She arrived there with the prize on 19 June and remained 10 days before shaping a course for New York.
The tug spent the early days of July in New York and stood out to sea on the 11th, towing two covered lighters, YF-445 and YF-447, in an Oran-bound convoy. She returned to New York on 19 August, having towed the battle damaged Free French warship Senegalaise from Oran. From 19 September to 5 December 1944, Abnaki made a round-trip voyage to Britain. During that mission, she towed barges and tank landing ships. On the return leg of that voyage, the ship made stops at Reykjavík, Iceland; and NS Argentia, Newfoundland; before returning to Norfolk. During January and February 1945, she again steamed to Oran and returned to Norfolk for repairs in preparation for duty with the Pacific Fleet.
On 24 April 1945, Abnaki passed between Capes Henry and Charles on her way to her new assignment. She arrived in the Panama Canal Zone on 9 May, transited the canal, and continued her voyage from Balboa, Panama, on the 16th with an Army dredge in tow. The tug arrived in San Diego, on 2 June and remained for five days. On the 7th, she took the dredge in tow once again and weighed anchor for the Central Pacific. After a stop at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, the fleet tug entered the lagoon at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on 25 July and discharged her tow. The following day, she got underway again and proceeded to Eniwetok Atoll, also in the Marshalls.
Abnaki remained there through the end of hostilities. Early in October, she shifted north to join the forces occupying Japan. That mission lasted through the end of 1945 and the first six months of 1946. On 6 July, the fleet tug departed Japanese waters and proceeded to China. Following a stop at Okinawa en route, she arrived at Shanghai on 16 July and began operations between that port and Tsingtao in support of American forces in China. On 24 October, she received orders sending her to the Mariana Islands. She arrived at Guam during the second week in November and provided towing service between the Marianas and the Admiralties through the end of the year. After February 1947, the Commander, Service Force, Pacific Fleet, expanded her sphere of operations to include ports in Japan and in China. The latter ports, however, were closed to her after the communist revolution in 1949.
1950–1959 The tug continued to operate in Far Eastern waters while the communist tide swept over the Asian mainland engulfing not only China but also the northern half of Korea where the Soviet occupation forces had established a puppet regime under Kim Il Sung on 1 May 1948. Just over two years later, that event led to the invasion of South Korea by communist forces from the north late in June 1950. Though American units, under the auspices of a Soviet-boycotted United Nations, moved into the breach quickly, Abnaki did not enter the zone of combat operations for over a year. In July 1951, however, she joined Service Division (ServDiv) 31 in providing mobile logistics support to the United Nations naval task forces engaged in the conflict. Abnaki's direct support for United Nations forces in Korea ended in February 1952, and she resumed service in Western and Central Pacific waters somewhat removed from the designated combat zone.
Save for an overhaul or two at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, her service in the Far East and in the waters of the Central Pacific continued unbroken until 1955. After participating in evacuation of Nationalist Chinese troops and civilians from the Tachen Islands in March of that year, the tug served in the Orient for a little over three months more. On 15 July 1955, she got underway from Sasebo, Japan, for Hawaii. En route to Hawaii, the fleet tug encountered an Army ship, FS-179, in distress and took her in tow. The two ships arrived at Pearl Harbor on 1 August. For the next 17 months, Abnaki operated from that base in the mid-Pacific operating area, voyaging only as far as such outlying islands as Midway and Johnston.
Her itinerary changed late in February 1957 when she steamed to San Francisco, to take in tow for the first leg of her journey to the east coast for her conversion to a guided missile cruiser. The two ships departed San Francisco on 2 March and arrived at Rodman in the Panama Canal Zone on the 29th. There, Abnaki turned her charge over to and headed back to Oahu for operations in Hawaiian waters through the summer. On 17 September, the fleet tug set sail for the Far East and provided support services for units of the 7th Fleet until returning to Pearl Harbor on 27 February 1958 and resuming mid-Pacific operations. On 18 November, she stood out of Pearl Harbor for another deployment with the 7th Fleet in the western Pacific.
Upon her return to Hawaii midway through 1959, Abnaki took up the familiar chore of towing various types of vessels between locations in the islands and to the more distant Johnston and Midway.
1960–1969 On 6 February 1960, she stood out of Pearl Harbor and shaped a course just a few degrees west of north. The tug arrived at Adak, Alaska, on the 14th and assisted in the salvage of before sailing for Oahu on 5 May. Arriving in Pearl Harbor on 12 May, the ship resumed her mid-Pacific duties. On 3 April 1961, she embarked upon another deployment to the western Pacific. After four months of towing duties between such ports as Sasebo and Yokosuka in Japan, Ream in Cambodia, Naha and Buckner Bay at Okinawa, and Subic Bay in the Philippines, Abnaki returned to Pearl Harbor on 8 August.
Following a leave, upkeep, and repair period, she once again began mid-Pacific duties early in September and continued the task through the year's end. On 24 January 1962, she departed Pearl Harbor and arrived in Adak on 1 February. The fleet tug conducted local operations in the Aleutians until 20 April when she shaped a course for Seattle, Washington. Following a six-day layover there, Abnaki headed for Oahu on 4 May and arrived at Pearl Harbor on the 12th. That summer, between 23 July and 7 September, she again deployed to the Aleutians. A return to mid-Pacific operations came early in September and lasted until she moved to the western Pacific on 21 May 1963.
That four-month tour of duty consisted of the normal round of port visits and of towing services to units of the 7th Fleet. Similarly, her return to Pearl Harbor brought the familiar towing and salvage operations in the mid-Pacific operating area. That routine was broken only once, during late January and early February 1964 when she made a round-trip voyage to San Francisco. Abnaki spent much of 1964 in operations out of Pearl Harbor and concluded the year preparing to deploy to the western Pacific.
During the latter part of 1964, American involvement in South Vietnam began to escalate as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. That development heralded a change in the nature of Abnaki's western Pacific deployments over the ensuing eight years. She departed Pearl Harbor with a dredge in tow on 4 January 1965 bound for Yokosuka, Japan. The dredge sank on the 19th; and, the following day, Abnaki entered Subic Bay in the Philippines. She operated locally out of Subic Bay until 5 March when she sailed for Vietnam. The tug served in Vietnamese waters as tender for a squadron of minecraft and conducted some patrols. She completed that assignment on 31 March and headed back to Subic Bay where she arrived on 4 April.
After eight days of upkeep at Subic Bay, she put to sea for a second tour of duty in Vietnamese waters. That mission concluded, Abnaki shaped a course for Hong Kong on 30 April for a liberty call from 3 to 8 May. Following a visit to Yokosuka from 14 to 20 May, the ship began the voyage back to Hawaii and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 1 June. After a 16-day leave and upkeep period, she resumed mid-Pacific operations out of her home port.
Following a three-month overhaul, three weeks of refresher training, and almost two months of local operations, Abnaki departed Pearl Harbor on 29 March 1966 for the western Pacific. She stopped at Guam along the way, before arriving in Nagasaki, Japan, late in April. The fleet tug towed an Army power barge from Nagasaki to Naha, Okinawa, for 12 days of upkeep. She departed that port on 19 May and arrived in Da Nang, South Vietnam, on the 22d. Between 23 May and 20 June, Abnaki operated in the South China Sea in support of 7th Fleet ships assigned to Yankee Station and made an overnight stop at Da Nang on 20 and 21 June before getting underway for Hong Kong. The ship remained in Hong Kong from 25 June to 2 July and then headed for Subic Bay for an upkeep period which occupied her for the bulk of July. On 26 July, she put to sea for Yokosuka and – after a stop at Buckner Bay, Okinawa – arrived at that port on 5 August. The tug stood out of Yokosuka a week later, towing LSSL-102, and moored at the Army pier at Sattahip, Thailand, on the 29th. She remained in Thailand, making one liberty call at Bangkok, until 22 September. Getting underway that day, the tug shaped a course for Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After nine days of upkeep at Kaohsiung, she set sail for Guam on 8 October and picked up her final tow of the deployment there on 16 October before steaming on toward Vietnam. She anchored off Vung Tau on Navy Day 1966, transferred her charge, and then got underway on 28 October to return home via Sasebo and Yokosuka.
The beginning of 1967 saw her resume local operations between Hawaii and the outlying islands. During the first three weeks in May, the fleet tug made a round-trip voyage to Seattle, Wash. After returning, Abnaki carried out mid-Pacific towing duties until mid-August. On the 18th, she exited Pearl Harbor on her way back to the Far East. Following stops at Guam and Subic Bay, the ship arrived at Danang on 15 September, took up duty on trawler surveillance patrol on Yankee Station, and spent most of the following month shadowing the Soviet trawler Ampermetr. Relieved on 15 October, Abnaki proceeded to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. On the way, however, she encountered Typhoon "Carla" and had to detour. Later, she went to the assistance of an Army tug towing a crane. When the Army vessel suffered mechanical difficulties that forced her to cut loose the crane to save herself, Abnaki brought the crane in safely. Next, she spent six days of rest and relaxation at Hong Kong before returning to Subic Bay for a three-week upkeep period.