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Other Memories
Marquette
Counties in Michigan and Wisconsin.
(AKA-95: dp. 6,761; l. 459'2"; b. 63'; dr. 26'4"; s. 16.5 k.;
cpl. 247; a. 1 5", 8 40mm.; cl. Andromeda; T. C2-S-B1)
Marquette (AKA-95), built under Maritime Conmmission contract
by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Kearny, N.J.,
was launched 29 April 1945; sponsored by Mrs. Sydney B. Wertheimer;
acquired by the Navy on loan charter from the Maritime Commission
19 June 1945; and commissioned 20 June 1945, Comdr. John E. Gabrielson
in command.
Two weeks prior to the end of hostilities in the Pacific Marquette,
an attack cargo ship, departed the east coast for Pearl Harbor.
Arriving there, 23 August, she loaded cargo for the western Pacific
and departed for Guam, 20 September. From Guam she continued on to
Manus and Brisbane, where she picked up a cargo of food for the
Philippines. Upon arrival at Samar, she discovered her cargo was
no longer needed and had been transferred to UNRRA for use in Greece.
She then proceeded to Piraeus, via Suez, discharged her cargo, and
returned to Norfolk 19 April 1946.
Marquette was then assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and for almost
9 years served as a unit of that fleet?s amphibious force.
She participated regularly in type, squadron, and
amphibious exercises which ranged from Greenland to the Caribbean.
Her activities also included periodic deployment with the 6th Fleet
and, 15 August to 21 September 1947, a Brazilian cruise with
congressional observers for the Rio Conference embarked. This
conference resulted in the signing of the Inter-American Treaty
of Reciprocal Assistance, 2 September.
Marquette?s five 6th Fleet deployments, with units of the
2d Marine Division on board, were conducted in 1948, 1949, 1951, 1952,
and 1954. During these Mediterranean cruises she operated primarily
in the eastern and southern sections of that sea. On her first such
deployment, in July 1948, Marquette was the scene of a conference
between the U.N. mediator in Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte,
and the commanding officers of units of TF 167 as tension under
the newly instituted, and extremely uneasy, truce between Israel,
Transjordan, and Egypt continued to mount. On each successive
deployment she was a source of stability in the troubled eastern
Mediterranean.
On 5 January 1955, Marquette departed Norfolk for California.
Arriving San Pedro on the 23d, she joined Transport Squadron 7,
Pacific Fleet. In mid-January she sailed to San Francisco,
where she decommissioned 19 July and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet.
On 9 January 1960, she was turned over to the Maritime Commission
and placed in the National Defense Reserve Fleet. Into 1969 she is
berthed at Olympia, Wash.
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