Ajax (AR 6) - Naval Cruise Book

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ONE YEAR OLD V. S. S. AJax October 30. 1944 USS AJAX 1st birthday program I USS AJAX with USS INTREPID (CV-11) along- side for repairs 30 April 1945

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She worked on battleships, cruisers and auxiliary ships through August. At one time during this period AJAX was assigned exten- sive jobs on 19 cruisers and nine battleships, in August of 1944 while at Eniwetok a cruiser came along side for repair work. Unknown to the AJAX the cruiser had bacillary dysentery aboard, which the AJAX crew picked up. The following is a quote from a crew member who was aboard AJAX at that time: At one time we had several hundred men on the sick list. Everybody took sulfaguanadyne as a preventive measure, the crew being given their pills in the cafeteria line. At first you could find lots of the pills on deck where men had ditched them. Then a man died, and the boys started using their pills. A second man died and they started stealing them from one another. In late August we were put under quarantine, the ship moved from Eniwetok to Kwajalein for quarantine and we were out of action as a repair ship for about six weeks . In May of 1945, while in Leyte Gulf, AJAX, along with the Jason, accomplished one of her most challenging jobs-repairing typhoon damage to USS BENNING- TON (CV-20). BENNINGTON had suffered severe damage to the for- ward section of her flight deck. The entire collapsed section of BEN- NINGTON ' S flight deck was cut away and replaced.

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At the end of World War II , AJAX re- turned to Pearl Harbor. There was a Pacific Fleet letter out then requiring any ship returning to the United States with over 250 men in the first leave party to send an Officer ahead with a list of men and their home des- tinations. The following is a quote from the officer AJAX sent ahead to Pearl. When I presented my orders and list, a lieutenant at the desk said, ' I am sorry but there are 65,000 men on ships in the bay awaiting land transportation, and your men will just have to wait. I can only regard the AJAX, as just another ship. ' A captain sitting a couple of desks away heard him, and asked him to repeat the name of the ship. When the lieutenant said ' AJAX ' , the captain said, ' For two years that ship has been doing things for other people and now someone is going to do something for them! ' the AJAX was taken care of. Even the man with the longest distance to travel got home for Christmas 1945. Homeported in San Diego after the war, AJAX made five tours of duty to the Orient during the years 1950 to 1958. Three of those tours were during the Korean conflict in which she provided logistic support for ' The Passage to Freedom in Tourane, Indo-China. In 1960, during her sixth tour of duty in Japan, AJAX received orders from the Chief of Naval Operations to be homeported in Sasebo, Japan. Through the next decade AJAX would provide considerable support to the seventh fleet and perform numerous good- will visits to our allies in the Orient. In February 1970 AJAX received word that due to cutbacks in military spending overseas, her homeport was to be changed effective 1 June 1970 . On the morning of 6 August 1970, AJAX steamed into San Diego harbor to a warm welcome from a crowd of AJAX families and friends. AJAX is one of the oldest continuously commissioned ships in the Navy. She has logged more time with the Seventh fleet during the Vietnam War years than any other ship in the U .S . Navy . Altogether AJAX ' s history has been an impressive one. She has serviced everything from the smallest boat to the largest aircraft carrier in the Navy, some- times with as many as 22 ships alongside for repair. Sailors who don ' t know, look at AJAX and say It ' s just another ship . They don ' t realize that for 34 years she has served as a hospital, supply center and a repair facility for those ship ' s and sailors in need of her help. USS AJAX with ships along- side in Yokosuka, Japan harbor Westpac tour 1977.