Renville (APA 227) - Naval Cruise Book

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x, , -if 9 0, Q ? 1 l 5 3 Q1 4. as Q t After the truce was signed in Korea the Renville returned to peacetime training. This has included large scale am- phibious operations and several tours of duty in the Western Pacific as part of the Seventh Fleet, demonstrating :Tower for Peacef, In January 1959 she cruised to Eniwetok in the Pacific and remained 4 months at the Eniwetok Proving Grounds assisting with atomic testing. Since then Renville has made many more WestPac deployments, returning from 8 months in the Far East on 5 De- cember 1961. The Renville remained in the San Diego area, occasionally going to sea for local operations. Between February and May she was awarded the Red Engineering E, the Amphibious Assault Award, and the White Gunnery E. On 21 May she left San Dieffo for Seattle Washington to attend th W ld' F ' D , . g , . e or s air, returning to San Diego on 30 May. Captain G. H. Lowe relieved Captain W. L. Savidge as commanding Officer on 7 June 1962. During July and August Renville was overhauled at the Todd Shipyards in San Pedro, California. Upon her return to San Diego she conducted readiness exercises and battle problems. On 22 October 1962 the Renville was alerted to the trouble in Cuba, and immediately set out to load troops and ff b cargo to e transported to the trouble spot. On Saturday morning 27 October the Renville sailed out of S D' ff h b , an iego ar or with other units of the Pacific Fleet for the Panama Canal. It was during that trip south that this story begins.

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V' E s J Z ...S- .f., K., i 4 E T. 5 4.1 Y! HISTORY The Renville is an attack transport, part of the amphibious forces of the U. S. Pacific Fleet. She is designed to com- bat load a troop battalion landing team with its equipment and supplies. She has the means of placing her embarked troops and equipment ashore on a hostile beach, and then provide logistic support from the sea. During actual hostilities, she would be a part of an Amphibious Task Force assigned the mission of launching an attack from the sea by naval and landing forces to seize a lodgement on land defended by the enemy. The Renville was constructed at the Vancouver, Washington, yards of the Kaiser Company. Her keel was laid 19 August 1944. On November 14, 78 days later, she was accepted by the U. S. Navy from the Maritime Commission on a loan basis and commissioned USS Renville QAPA 2271. She is named after counties in both North Dakota and Min. nesota. By March 15 she was ready for action and embarked troops, 1620 strong, from Guadalcanal. On 1 April 1945, the Renville landed these troops with her assault boats on the beaches of Okinawa in the last invasion of the war. After Okinawa, the remainder of the war was spent in transporting troops and cargo between the United States and various Pacific bases. Following the Japanese surrender, Renville was assigned the task of returning troops, sometimes civilians back to the U. S. In September, 1,436 allied military personnel, among them Dutch, British, and Canadians, were transported from Japan, where they had been used in slave labor, to Manila for rest and recuperation. In January 1946 the Renville became a permanent part of the U. S. Navy. Following a short stay in the States she was ordered to duty off the coast of China during the early battles between the Nationalists and Communists. Suddenly, in December 1947, the Renville was sent to Batavia, Java, Netherlands East Indies. It was here that she became Headquarters Ship for the United Nations Truce Commission negotiating settlement terms between the Dutch military forces and the Indonesian Nationalists. The ensuing treaty was known as the RENVILLE TREATY. In 1949 the Renville was decommissioned and placed in mothballs at Mare Island, California. I-Ier retirement was short lived. On 5 January 1952, she was recommissioned and sailed again to become part of the active fleet engaged in com- bat. Her duty included lifting troops from Japan to Korean ports including Pusan and Inchon.

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CAPT GRADY H. LOWE Captain G. H. Lowe entered the Navy in July 1940. He was commissioned in June 1941 and then served in the OffiCC of the Chief of Naval Operations and later on the USS INDIANA CBB 581 in the Southwest Pacific. His World War II actions were not limited to the Pacific, however. From 1943 until the end of the war he served as Opefations Officer for Amphibious Flotillas 4, 12 and 38 taking part in landings in the Mediterranean Sea and in Normandy. After the war he was stationed at the Naval Personnel Separation Center, Bainbridge, Maryland, as Operations Control Officer. When Korean Conflict engaged the United States Captain Lowe served as Executive Officer of the USS MCCAFFERY QDD 8601, and later served on the staff of Commander Task Force 90 fComPhibPacj as Force CIC Officer and AS- sistant Gunnery and Readiness Officer. Following the War, 1954-1955 he was commanding officer USS HOLLISTER KDD 788 . C ' ' J aptaln Lowe served as O1nC Nuclear Weapons Courses at Nuclear Weapons Training Center Pacific until 1958, where he was principal instructor in Nuclear Ph sic F ll ' y s. o owing a year at the Naval War College he served on the staff of Commander in Chief, U. S. Pacific Fleet, as CincPacFlt Representative for the Pacific Missile Range until 1962. He relieved Captain W. L. Savidge as Commanding Officer USS RENVILLE QAPA 2272 in June 1962. Educationally, Captain Lowe has attended Catawba College, The University of North Carolina, The University Of Rhode Island, and Ventura College. He received a Bachelor's Degree from San Diego State College in Chemistry in 1958. He also is a graduate of the General Line School, Monterey, California, and the course in Naval Warfare at the Naval War College, Newport, R. I. Captain Lowe is married to the former Daisy Martin of Plymouth, Florida. They were married in 1946. They have iW0 children, Linda .lean and Gary Howard. Presently the Lowes reside in Bonita, California.