Service Squadron
Equally important at places like Ulithi were the portable piers and floating dry docks which allowed many ships damaged by enemy action or Pacific storms to undergo repair without having to travel the thousands of miles back to a major US naval base.
Service Squadrons were slowly disbanded in the late 1970s as fleet combat support functions were shifted to civilian operated Military Sealift Command.
Travel to the area of combat would consume the fleet's supplies of fuel and food and limit the length of time US Navy assets could operate in the Western Pacific.
Japanese naval strategy ('Kantai Kessen') was built around the idea that this would present them with an opportunity to knock the US Navy out of the conflict with a single decisive action.
[2] Service Squadron 4 was commissioned on 1 November 1943 with its mission being to provide logistics support to fleet operations from floating mobile bases.
United States Marines were landed on 30 January 1944, but found that Japanese forces had previously evacuated their fortifications to Kwajalein and Enewetak about a year earlier.
It became the first major forward base for the US Pacific fleet and was the largest and most active port in the world until the war moved westward and Majuro became supplanted by Ulithi.
Captain Herbert Meyer Scull was reassigned as chief of staff for Rear Admiral Hoover, Commander Forward Area, Central Pacific.
By the end of July Commodore Worrall R. Carter flew to Pearl Harbor to participate in planning the move of Servron 10 facilities from Eniwetok to Ulithi.
By this point in the conflict, Commander Service Squadron 10 (ComServRon 10) had several hundred ships and floating equipment under his operational control, and had the largest staff afloat in the Pacific to help administrate responsibilities.
Captain Ogden's responsibility, as Representative "A" of Commander Service Squadron Ten in charge of his Seeadler detachment, was to administer its activities in rendering logistic support.
Commander ServRon Ten at Eniwetok immediately began preparations to send the second contingent of oilers, which left on the 27th and reached Seeadler the 31st.
Crane barges, small tugs, and landing craft were vital necessities for supply services within a harbor, and had to go forward.
[9] For resupply in the combat area, the ammunition ships Mauna Loa and Shasta left Seeadler on 15 September for Kossol Passage, Palau Islands, and upon arrival on the 18th immediately began rearming battleships and cruisers of the Naval Gunfire Support Group.
On 22 September Lassen also left Seeadler for Kossol, where she issued replacement ammunition to the support group and to Task Force 38.3.
Laws, commanding the repair ship Prometheus, on 3 October became the Kossol Passage Representative of Service Squadron Ten.
Ulithi's forty small islands barely rise above the sea, with the largest being only half a square mile in area.
[13] On 8 October 1944 Commodore Worrall R. Carter's flagship Prairie, the merchant ammunition ship Plymouth Victory and Cascade sailed for Ulithi.
[2] Fleet oilers sortied to and from Ulithi to meet the task forces at sea, refueling the warships a short distance from their combat operational areas.
The result was something never seen before: a vast floating service station enabling the entire Pacific fleet to operate indefinitely at unprecedented distances from its mainland bases.
Service Squadron 10's conversion of the lagoon at Ulithi to a major naval resupply and staging area was one of the most remarkable feats of the war.
The huge anchorage capacity was greater than either Majuro or Pearl Harbor, and over seven hundred ships anchored there at a time.
[17] The conversion was completed in October, and Ocelot sailed via Eniwetok for Ulithi where she spent the next six months providing an administrative post at the advanced base.
[16] The movement of American forces closer to victory necessitated advancing support elements as well, and on 24 May 1945 Ocelot shifted to San Pedro Bay, Leyte.
While that was an area under the cognizance of the Seventh Fleet, which at that time did not come under the direct command of Admiral Nimitz, it was nevertheless a matter of brothers-in-arms cooperation to give support wherever possible.
In this detachment was a floating drydock of 3,500 tons and another smaller one, as the shore-base development planned for the area was not far enough advanced to meet the requirements.
The total number of ships to be serviced at Leyte was 432, some—ships newly reporting from the United States—needing little attention, others considerable, especially amphibious craft returning from Iwo Jima.
Of the floating drydocks, both brought forward from Kossol, ARD-16 was unavailable for the staging work because it contained the battle-damaged destroyer Renshaw.
There was also a special small-boat pool and an LVT repair facility run by the amphibious force, two 75-ton cranes on 6 × 18 pontoon lighters, and a pier for handling ammunition between ship and shore.
[10] On 13 September Ocelot moved westward again, to Buckner Bay, Okinawa as the forward supply followed the course of the conflict finally to the home waters of Japan.
