Bayfield (APA 33) - Naval Cruise Book

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COMMANDING OFFICER NOVEMBER 1964- CAPTAIN JOHN H. lARROBINO Captain lARROBINO, after majoring in Chemistry at Boston College, Class of 1942, went to Pensacola for flight training. After winning his wings and being commissioned as an Ensign, he served as a dive bomber pilot aboard the first Ranger (CV-4 in the Atlantic Theatre and as a land based dive bomber in the Solomon Islands and Bougainville in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. He then had successive tours in the Naval Air Advanced Training Command at Jacksonville, Florida; the U. S. S. BOXER (CV-21) as Assistant Air Officer; General Line School, Newport, Rhode Island; and NAS Quonset Point, Rhode Island. In April 1952, he assumed command of VF-174, a fighter squadron having F4U Corsairs which soon gave way to the newer F9F-6 Cougar jets. The squadron was based aboard the carrier U. S. S. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT rcVA-42) for a Mediterranean cruise later thatyear. This was followed by a tour as Operations Officer on the staff of Commander Fleet Air Jacksonville and then he returned to Newport for a year as a student at the Naval War College. Following a two year stint in Washington, D. C. on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, he was assigned as Operations Officer of the U. S. S. FORRESTAL (CVA-59) in November 1957. This tour included another cruise to the Mediterranean. In March 1959, Captain lARROBINO was transferred to the staff of the Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet and then he re- turned to Washington, D. C. in 1961 as a student at the National War College. Before reporting as Commanding Officer of the U. S. S. BAYFIELD (APA-33) he served a year in the Bureau of Naval Weapons as Director of Anti-Air Warfare Systems and a year in the new Office of Naval Material as Director of the Project Management Sub-Group and Director of the Plans Division. Captain lARROBINO has been awarded the Air Medal, the Navy Commendation Ribbon and various other compaign and ser- vice medals. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. P. lARROBINO of Needham, Massachusetts and is married to the former Grace M. KIRKLIGHTER of West Newton, Massachusetts. They have two children, Jimmy 16, and Janice, 15, who are now attending Dana Junior High School in San Pedro.

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With the outbreak of hostilities in Korea in the spring of 1950, the BAYFIELD, then in the Atlantic, was transferred to Pacific waters and participated in the Amphibious Operations at Inchon, Chinnampo, and Wonsan. She also took part in the redeploy- ment of troops from the beaches of Hungnam to Pusan. During the Communist push in Indo-China in September of 1954 the ship steamed over 7,000 miles transporting approximately 6,000 Indo-Chinese refugees from the North Coast at Haiphong to Saigon in the south. For the BAYFIELD ' S part in this Operation Passage to Freedom the ship received national attention in a 1955 Readers Digest article entitled They ' ll Remember the BAYFIELD. In the fall of 1962 the BAYFIELD, along with other units of the Pacific Amphibious Force, took on a full load of troops and cargo and within 48 hours was steaming south eventually to transit the Panama Canal. This task force stood ready for any emergency in the Caribbean for two months out in an attempt to ease the Cuban Crisis. This WESPAC cruise saw the BAYFIELD parti- cipate in Operation Starlight the first Amphibious Assult under combat conditions since the Korean War. Acting as Flagship, the BAYFIELD directed the assult of the Regimental Landing Team Seven of the 7th Marines upon the fortified positions of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment in Bale de My Han Bay, South Vietnam. With the support of other Marine units the Viet Cong regiment was surrounded and annihilated with a loss of over 1,000 hard core Viet Cong regu- lars making Operation Starlight the first major American victory in Vietnam. In a subsequent operation. Operation Piranha, the BAYFIELD landed units of RLT 7 in a clear and sweep of a major Viet Cong training area also in the Bale de My Han Bay area. In addition the BAYFIELD through out the WESPAC tour transported much in the way of men and material to U. S. Forces engaged in Da Nang and Chu Lai, South Vietnam. Working at capacity the BAYFIELD can carry 1400 troops and 13,000 tons of cargo, all capable of being offloaded in the heat of an Amphibious assault in a matter of hours by the highly trained team which makes up the BAYFIELD crew. Twenty-three boats constitute the Boat Group which storms the beaches with troops and cargo. All told BAYFIELD has steamed the equivalent of 21 trips around the world in her 22 years of Naval service.

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