Mount McKinley (AGC 7) - Naval Cruise Book

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her, the MOUNT MCKINLEY returned to the Far East once more in the Spring of 1950--this time with a peacetime job. Assigned to tQ'ommander. Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet. her mission was the training of land, sea and air forces in the wide- spread areas of the Far East. Carefully planned training missions for our ship were set aside promptly on 25 June 1950 when tfom- munist forces from North Korea drove across the 38th parallel into South Korea. Training time-tables were quickly abandoned, and combat duty with the Eighth Army took over as the order ot' the day. Initial Korean duty for the 5IOlfN'l' McKlNI.ICY was as one ot' the original ships ot' the forces which carried the lst Vavalry Division to Korea. Flagship of the doughty resistance lleet, our ship carried units of the lst t'av into Pohang-dong in the desperate days ot' .Iuly, 1950. Aboard her during subsequent trips to Korea were soldiers bound for an urgent rendezvous with the enemy. . . and top military and naval ollicers including tleneral Douglas MacArthur, t'ommander-in-t'hiel' ot' the United Nations t'ommand. From the bridge ot' the 3lOl'N'l' McKlNl.l'lY, General MacArthur directed the daring, historic amphibious assault at lnchon on I5 September 1950, the heroic naval and military feat which helped E Iffiii lead to the final rout of Communist forces from South Korea. After less than a year had passed since her last action at Korea, the MOUNT MCKINLEY left the States again and headed westward on 6 March 1952 with the forces of Commander, Amphibious Group Three. During this second cruise in Asian waters the ship took part in the mock invasion of Korea in the Koje area south of Wonsan. On 30 January 1953, the MOUNT MCKINLEY was ordered back to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for an overhaul and a face-lifting to prepare her for duty as headquarters for the commander of an amphibious force. Principal alteration was the in- stallation on her fantail of a 45-ton helicopter deck. Overhauled and altered, the MOUNT MCKINLEY loaded members of the 3rd Marine Division, com- manded by Major General Robert H. Pepper, and set sail again for far-eastern waters. After debark- ing the 3rd Marines in Japan, she returned once more to the United States. Back in the familiar port of San Diego, the MOUNT McKINLEY picked up the commander of Amphibious Group Three and his staff and on 27 October 1953, pointed her bow toward Japan and her third tour of duty in the Far East.

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thumbnail history of the ship HE USS MOUNT McKINLEY bears the name of another American titan -- Alaska's tower- ing 20,300-foot peak. Constructed at the North Carolina Shipbuilding Yards at Wilmington, N.C., she was first commissioned by the Marine Commis- sion in 1943 under the name S.S. CYCLONE. As World War II roared to a climax the S.S. CYCLONE was converted by the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard into her present design. On 1 May 1944, she was renamed the USS MOUNT McKINLEY. The MOUNT MCKINLEY sailed swiftly into battle and served as flagship for five amphibious operations--Leyte Gulf, Palau, Lingayen Gulf, San Narcisco and Kerma Retto--quickly earning four Navy Unit Commendations. When the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the MOUNT MCKINLEY landed initial units of the occupation forces at Tokyo and other ports of Japan. After finishing her duties during the historic surrender of Japan, the MOUNT McKINLEY was again placed in the spotlight's glare of another history-making event when she was selected as the flagship for the atomic bomb tests at Bikini and Enevvetok in 1948. With World War Il battles, the surrender of Japan and the epochal nuclear bomb tests behind SOILS Q-psf

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CENE: PIER GEORGE, Naval Air Station, San Diego. Time: 1000, 27 October 1953. The scene was familiar. The bow and stern lines cast off. The discordant horns of the diminutive tugs hoot- ed as they backed full and the MOUNT McKINLEY was off on her third cruise to the Far East. The ship's company and the flag personnel lined the rails to listen to the musical farewell from the PHIBPAC band. As they listened, they waved farewell to wives, sweethearts and friends on the slowly disappearing docks. Many hated to leave-- others looked forward to Japan--most were thinking and dreaming of the future when the scene would be similar--but reversed. There would be the same band, the same hoarse bellows from the same squatty tugs. There would be the familiar faces of the wives, the sweet- hearts, the friends. This would be the MOUNT McKINLEY's homecoming. But they reminded themselves that that future was nine months off. Many ocean knots and the waters of many foreign Tas: 'have passed beneath the keel of this, the In these pages of our Cruise Book then, are recorded these days, these events, and the men who made them. O headed seevard Weather typio ' S 2111 ally cool and rnlsty J' . 7 N L4 . X it Q 5 F Q. '? A W - x