Wythe (APB-41)
1945-1959
A county in the southwestern part of the state of Virginia.
(APB-41: displacement 2,080 (full load); length 328'0"; beam 50'0"; draft 11'2"; speed 10.0 knots; complement 151; troops 340; armament 8 40 millimeter, 8 20 millimeter; class Benewah)
LST-575 {q.v.) was laid down on 3 May 1944 at Evansville, Indiana, by the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co.; launched on 9 June 1944; sponsored by Mrs. E. L. Cochrane; and commissioned at New Orleans on 30 June 1944, Lt. Patrick H. Shea, D-VS, USNR, command.
Following her initial World War II service as a tank landing ship, LST-575 underwent conversion at the Waipio Point Amphibious Base and began conversion to a new, special type of support ship, a self-propelled floating barracks, a "mother ship" for small ships and craft utilized in amphibious operations,
The idea, converting tank landing ships to floating barrack-type vessels, came from Capt. Stanley Leith, operations officer on the staff of Vice Adm. Richmond Kelly Turner, Commander, Amphibious Forces, Pacific, who had suggested it to the admiral. To many, the ships' initial designation, LST(M), or, simply, a modified LST, came to stand for "mother ship." It was perhaps that concept that caused the crew of LST-575 to give her the nickname "Mammy Yokum" after a famous cartoon character of the day. The ship carried o78t her vital service function in the Philippines and at Kerama Retto, Okinawa, she was reclassified from LST(M)-575 to APB-41 and given the name Wythe, effective 31 March 1945. Ultimately, in mid-July, Wythe shifted to Buckner Bay, Okinawa, and SLCU-40 went ashore to base. The barracks ship functioned in her original capacity there, an existence hampered by two typhoons: one in late July and one in early August through the end of the war with Japan in mid-August.
After serving as administrative flagship for Commander, Naval Forces, Ryukyus, berthing and messing 140 men into late August 1945, Wythe sailed for Jinsen (now Inchon), Korea, to serve as part of the occupation forces in that area, taking part in Operation Campus. Dropping anchor in Jinsen harbor on 12 September, Wythe supported the 7th Amphibious Force beach party and spent two weeks in that port before she shifted to Taku, China, where she berthed and fed the men from a boat pool there.
Wythe subsequently shifted to Tsingtao, China, and performed similar, but vital, support duties into the spring of 1946, alternating her duties at Tsingtao and Jinsen. On 14 April 1946, in company with her sister-ship Yavapai (APB-42), she sailed for Panama and, proceeding via Okinawa and Pearl Harbor, transited the Panama Canal between 9 and 11 June. Wythe ultimately arrived at New Orleans on the 16th.
Wythe's active days were numbered. She reported to Commander, Texas Group, 16th Fleet, on 14 October 1946, and was subsequently inactivated. Placed in reserve at Orange, Tex., on 29 May 1947, and simultaneously decommissioned there, Wythe remained in reserve until she was stricken from the Navy Register on 1 May 1959. Her stripped hulk was sold for scrap to the Marlene Blouse Corp. on 10 September 1959.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
29 February 2024
