Skip to main content
Naval History and Heritage Command

Naval History and Heritage Command

Tags
Related Content
Topic
  • Boats-Ships--Support Ships
Document Type
  • Ship History
Wars & Conflicts
  • World War II 1939-1945
File Formats
Location of Archival Materials

Mellena (AKA-32)

1944-1946

An astronomical body.

(AKA‑32: displacement 4,087; length 426'0"; beam 58'0"; draft 16'0"; speed 17.0 knots; complement 303; armament 1 5-inch, 8 40 millimeter, 10 20 millimeter; class Artemis; type S4-SE2‑BE1)

Mellena (AKA‑32) was laid down on 25 September 1944 under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 1893) at Providence, R.I., by the Walsh‑Kaiser Co., Inc. ; launched on 11 December 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Paul P. Neal; acquired by the Navy on 20 January 1945; and commissioned the same day, Lt. Cmdr. Benny C. Modin, D-M, USNR, in command.

After shakedown out of Norfolk, Va., Mellena carried cargo via Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Panama to Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, where she arrived in mid‑March 1945. She trained in Hawaiian waters until 8 April; and following a cargo run to San Francisco, Calif., and back continued amphibious support training exercises until sailing for the Philippines on 13 June. She reached Guinan, Samar, on 28 June. During the closing weeks of fighting in the western Pacific, she made cargo runs to the Palaus, the Admiralties, and the Marianas, and at the cessation of hostilities lay anchored off Iwo Jima. After ransporting Construction Battalions (Seabees) to Saipan, she returned to Leyte Gulf on 28 August to carry occupation troops to Japan.

Assigned to Transport Squadron 24, Mellena embarked 242 MPs and Army Engineers of the XIV Corps at Manila and sailed for Japan on 7 September 1945. Reaching Tokyo Bay on the 13th, she steamed up the Honshu coast and debarked her troops at Shiogama two days later. She battled typhoon seas off Honshu  on 18 September and arrived at Okinawa a week later to embark units of the First Marine Division. Operating with the Seventh Amphibious Group, she sailed for Chinese waters on 29 September to support the U.S. program of assisting the Chinese Nationalists in their efforts to regain control of the Chinese mainland following the defeat of Japan.

Mellena entered the Gulf of Chihli on 3 October 1945 and during the next week she debarked the First Marines who were ordered to take control of the Tientsin area until Chinese Nationalist troops could be brought in to replace them. Departing Taku on 11 October, she steamed via the Philippines to French Indochina where she arrived in the approaches to Haiphong on 26 October. There she embarked 906 troops of the 52nd Chinese Army and support equipment before sailing for northern China on 30 October. As part of an eight‑ship troop convoy, she reached Chinwangtao, China, on 7 November and discharged the Nationalist troops. She returned to Taku two days later and on the 13th was assigned to Magic Carpet duty. Steaming via Tsingtao and Okinawa, she sailed with a capacity load of returning troops and reached Portland, Oregon, on 12 December.

From 14 December to 9 January 1946, Mellena underwent repairs at Williamette Iron & Steel Co. Thence she sailed on 18 January for San Pedro, Calif., where she arrived on the 29th via San Francisco and San Diego. Designated for conversion to a surveying ship (AGS) on 26 January, she operated out of San Pedro under Service Force, Pacific Fleet, until 6 March when she was ordered to be disposed of rather than converted.

Assigned to the Twelfth Naval District on 9 April 1946, she reached Vallejo, Calif., on the 15th. She was  decommissioned there on 11 June 1946 and simultaneously was transferred to the War Shipping Administration for delivery to the California Maritime Academy. Mellena was stricken from the Navy Register on 3 July 1946.

She served the Academy as Golden Bear while under loan from the U.S. Maritime Commission until returned to the Maritime Adninistration (formerly the Maritime Commission) on 5 May 1971.  The ship was then purchased by the National Metal & Steel Corp., the same day (5 May 1971) and physically delivered to the purchaser at 12:20 p.m. on 14 May 1971, to be broken up for scrap.

Updated, Robert J. Cressman

24 March 2023

 

Published: Sat Mar 25 19:47:24 EDT 2023