Castor (AKS 1) - Naval Cruise Book

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On June 30, 1947 as part of the post war cutback, CASTOR was decommissioned and placed in the San Francisco Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. There she remained for nearly four years. As a result of the Korean conflict, she was reactivated in late 1950, and for the next fourteen months c arried vital supplies to United Nations forces. Inchon, Pusan, Sasebo, and Yokosuka were her main ports of call. Sailing for San Francisco in March 19C2, CASTOR was caught in a typhoon as trouble developed in her main reduction gears. All engines were stopped and the ship lav dead in the water for twenty-two hours while the storm raged about her. After sustaining considerable damage, she was taken under tow and returned to Yokosuka for repairs. By April she was back on the line, this time operating in the Philippine area. More runs brought a varietj of duties. In 19C4 she was in Indochina, issuing supplies to the ships evacuating refugees. In January 1956 CASTOR returned to the States to the Triple A and Todd Shipyard tor five months of overhaul and conversion. She emerged in June as the most advanced supply ship in the U.S. Navy. With her redesign she was the first to add technical spares to her cargo of general stores. Her new profile included petroleum products, electrical, electronic, ordnance, and ships repair parts. In uiuist [9C6, she sailed west again and her home port became Sasebo. In October it was changed to Yokosuka. bout that same time she picked up an SOS from the Philippine merchant ship SS 1 I PUS, caught in a typhoon M i sinking oil Cagayan, Philippines. With the as- sistance of aircraft from Clark ir force Base, CASTOR located and picked up the n survivors. For this she received a citation , m. plaque from Ramon Magsaysay, then president ol the Philippine Republic. In peacetime or at war CASTOR lias always been number one . In u)(- 1 she earned the battle efficienc) I award for the Service lone Pacific Meet. In [963 she made a clean sweep i.l cargo transfer records for ks tvpes. Her speed ol transfer to aircraft carrier, cruiser, and destroyer type ships were more than double the old rates. In August [964, CASTOR ' S home port was changed to Sasebo. She has not returned to the I niteel Slates since [9C6, and for more than fourteen ol herlvventv six vc.nsslic has Steamed in far eastern waters. Ichi-ban Main is a familiar sic ht in the Orient.

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SHIP ' S HISTORY Her keel «.is laid as the Hist of a new breed, the C-2 cargo vessels for the U. S. Maritime com- mission. Designed by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, she was christened S. S. CHALLENGE and launched at Kearney, New Jersey on Mav 20, 1939. CHALLENGE sailed for the Cuba Mail Line until purchased bj the Navy in October of 1940. Converted for the Navy at Brewer ' s Shipyard, Staten Island, she became the first of another breed, a Stores Issue ship. Designated AKS-i and renamed USS CASTOR, she has been ichi-ban ( number one ) since her commissioning in March 1941. The CASTOR ' s mission was to carry general stores, ship ' s store stock, clothing, small stores, and medical and dental supplies: over eleven thousand different items, to forward operating areas for fleet issue. She was to provide logistic support to fleet units, in port or underway, in areas where advance bases were not available. Until the early months of 1944 CASTOR and ANTARES (AKS-3) were the onlv ships of this type operating with the fleet. She received her initial load in April 1941 from Naval Supply Depot, Norfolk, and the following month arrived in San Diego to begin her i areer in the Pacific. Alter only a few months of Navy service she added Marines to her load, along with their field gear and artillery. With the USMC First Defense Battalion aboard, CASTOR headed west, and on November 2, 1941, she landed two hundred men at Wake Island. These men formed nearly hall of the island ' s defense force when the Imperial Japanese Navv struck thirty-six days later. Returning immediately to Mare Island, California, CASTOR took on another load reflecting the tension of the times: ammunition and high explosives. With this hot cargo she arrived at Pearl Harbor on December 4, 1 94 1 . Most of it was still aboard three days later when the Japanese attacked, but an obscure berth at Merry ' s Point protected her from a direct hit. The vessel was strafed but suffered no casualties and resumed off-loading her ammunition soon after the attack. She then returned to the States, this time to Alameda with a load of pineapples which were used primarily for ballast. For the rest of the war CASTOR continued to make her supply runs to the central and southwest Pacific with cargos of troops, ammunition, and general stores. Wherever the fleet was, there was CASTOR. By the war ' s end, she had made twenty major supply runs, steaming nearly 250,000 miles.

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D E C K H