ULITHI …
Its existence kept secret throughout the war, the US naval base at Ulithi was for a time the world’s largest naval facility.
In March 1945, 15 battleships, 29 carriers, 23 cruisers, 106 destroyers, and a train of oilers and supply ships sailed from “a Pacific base.” What was this base? The mightiest force of naval Power ever assembled must have required a tremendous supporting establishment. Ulithi, the biggest and most active naval base in the world was indeed tremendous but it was unknown. Few civilians had heard of it at all. By the time security released the name, the remarkable base of Ulithi was a ghost. The war had moved on to the Japanese homeland, and the press was not printing ancient history about Ulithi.
Ulithi is 360 miles southwest of Guam, 850 miles east of the Philippines, 1300 miles South of Tokyo. It is a typical volcanic atoll with coral, white sand, and palm trees. The reef runs roughly twenty miles north and south by ten miles across enclosing a vast anchorage with an average depth of 80 to 100 feet – the only suitable anchorage within 800 miles. Three dozen little islands rise slightly above the sea, the largest only half a square mile in area.
The U.S. Navy arrived in September 1944 and found resident about 400 natives and three Japanese soldiers. The natives on the four largest islands were moved to smaller Fassarai, and every inch of these four was quickly put to use. Asor had room for a headquarters: port director, radio station, an evaporator (rain is the only freshwater supply), tents, small boat pier, cemetery. Sorlen was set up as a shop for maintaining and repairing the 105 LCVPs and 45 LCMs that became beasts of all work in the absence of small boats. Mogmog was assigned to recreation. The big island, Falalop, was just wide enough for a 3500-foot airstrip for handling the R4Ds (Douglas DC-3s) and R5C Commandos, which would presently fly in from Guam 1269 passengers, 4565 sacks of mail and 262,251 pounds of air freight a week. This took care of a few services – but where were they going to put the naval base?
Enter “the secret weapon,” as Admiral Nimitz called Service Squadron Ten. Commodore Worrall R. Carter survived Pearl Harbor to devise the miraculous mobile service force that made it possible for the Navy to move toward Japan in great jumps instead of taking the slow and costly alternative of capturing a whole series of islands on which to build a string of land bases.
Within a month of the occupation of Ulithi, a whole floating base was in operation. Six thousand ship fitters, artificers, welders, carpenters, and electricians arrived aboard repair ships, destroyer tenders, floating dry docks. USS AJAX had an air-conditioned optical shop, a supply of base metals from which she could make any alloy to form any part needed. Many refrigerator and supply ships belonged to three-ship teams: the ship at Ulithi had cleaned out and relieved sister ship No. 2 which was on the way back to a rear base for more supplies while No. 3 was on the way out to relieve No. 1. Over half the ships were not self-propelled but were towed in. They then served as warehouses for a whole system of transports which unloaded stores on them for distribution. This kind of chain went all the way back to the United States. The paper and magazines showed England sinking under the stockpile of troops and material collected for the invasion of Normandy.
The Okinawa landings were not so well documented but they involved more men, ships, and supplies-including 600,000 gallons of fuel oil, 1500 freight cars of ammunition, and enough food to provide every person in Vermont and Wyoming with three meals a day for fifteen days. The smaller ships needed a multitude of services, the ice cream barge made 500 gallons a shift, and the USS ABATAN, which looked like a big tanker, really distilled fresh water and baked bread and pies. Fleet oilers sortied from Ulithi to refuel the combat ships a short distance from the strike areas. They added men, mail, and medical supplies, and began to take orders for spare parts.
When Leyte Gulf was secured, the floating base moved on, and Ulithi which had had a temporary population the size of Dallas and had been the master of half the world for seven months shrank to little more than a tanker depot. Once again, it became a quiet, lonely atoll.
Ulithi Atoll
Ulithi Atoll
US Navy 1944 berthing chart for the Northern Anchorage of the Ulithi Lagoon, Caroline Islands
Ships of the 3rd fleet Ulithi December 1944
Ships of the 3rd fleet Ulithi December 1944
Ships of the 5th fleet Ulithi
Ulithi January 1945
Murderer’s Row the carriers Wasp (CV 18), Yorktown (CV 10), Hornet (CV 12), and Hancock (CV 19) anchored in Ulithi Atoll Dec 1944
Ulithi Anchorage
Ulithi Anchorage
Murderer’s Row the carriers Wasp (CV 18), Yorktown (CV 10), Hornet (CV 12), and
Hancock (CV 19) anchored in Ulithi Atoll Dec 1944
Murderer’s Row
USS North Carolina at Ulithi
Ulithi Anchorage
Ulithi Anchorage
USS South Dakota Ulithi
USS South Dakota Ulithi
R&R on Mog-Mog Island in Ulithi Atoll
Mog-Mog liberty c 1944
Mog-Mog liberty c 1944
Mog-Mog liberty c 1944
Mog-Mog liberty c 1944
Mog-Mog O-club
Mog-Mog liberty
Mog-Mog baseball
Mog-Mog beach
Mog-Mog beach liberty
Ulithi R&R
Ulithi R&R
Mail call Ulithi c 1944
Mog-Mog liberty
Mog-Mog liberty
Ulithi
Officers of Bombing Squadron (VB) 4 pictured with an SB2C Helldiver on the
flight deck of the carrier Essex (CV 9) at Ulithi Atoll.
F6F-5N Hellcat aircraft of VMF(N)-541, MAG-45, are on the ground at Falalop Island, Ulithi Atoll 1945
R4D Aircraft Used as a Projection Room for Movies, Ulithi, 1944
Corsair at Ulithi Atoll strip
More photos of R&R conditions on the islands of the Ulithi Atoll.
and even more photos of color LIFE on and around the Ulithi Atoll.
Not all was fun and games at Ulithi …
Burning oil tanker, believed to be the USS Mississinewa after it was hit by a Japanese suicide submarine (kaiten) in Ulithi lagoon, 20 November 1944
Great history lesson with fabulous pictures. Thank you.
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Garland, I’m a fan of the PAC war and this is the first time I’ve heard of Ulithi. What a great story!
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Fantastic visit to the Pacific war. Soooo much support was needed for the front line combatants.
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Well done Garland. Now if Camp Andrews in Nanakuli were only half as well documented it would make an interesting read.
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Very interesting story. I love reading about WWII history. Especially about the Naval action in the South Pacific. My dad and uncle served during the war. Dad on an LST and uncle on LCI. Unfortunately, my uncle was killed at the Battle of Guam, July 21, 1944. He was just 19. Dad had just enlisted as he only turned 18 in June.
My dad died last month at 91. His stories of the war were never ending and I became very interested in hearing them as I got older. He could tell me everything about the South Pacific islands and different battles. I sure miss him right now because I would have called him to ask him about Ulithi. I’m thinking he may have mentioned Mog Mog to me in one of his stories along the way.
Thank you for this story.
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Never see the like again. Too good a nuclear weapon target!
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Supervisor of Diving and Salvage of NAVSEA removed 2 million gallons of crude oil from the USS Mississeneiwa that was sunk after refueling from a Japanese Kaitan Sub. In 1944. The fuel was removed in 2001. After it started leaking an was about to destroy the pristine beaches.
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I was there in 1983 while aboard the USS San Jose (AFS-7). We were there to conduct a “Trust Territory” survey. We went to the island Falope with the airfield and took photos of the reefs and the old Harbor entrance. Found out later that the DOD was concerned that the Philippines might kick the Navy out of Subic and they’d need to find another harbor during the cold war. We also surveyed the Palau Island’s for the same purposes.
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Garland, thanks for sharing a very thorough and professional job of illustrating a story we all need to appreciate and understand. In all my years of reading WWII Pacific War books, the photos never showed us much beyond the familiar shot of Murderer’s Row.
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