Montague (AKA-98)
1945-
A county in the state of Texas.
(AKA‑98: displacement 6,761; length 459'2"; beam 63'0”; draft 26'4"; speed 16.5 knots; complement 474; armament 1 5-inch, 8 40 millimeter, 18 20 millimeter; class Andromeda; type C2‑S‑B1)
Montague (AKA‑98), was laid down on 2 November 1944 under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 220) at Kearny, N.J., by the Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co.; launched on 11 February 1945; sponsored by Mrs. Irving S. Olds; and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., on 13 April 1945, Capt. Bascom H. Thomas, (D), USNR, in command.
After shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay, Montague proceeded to the Territory of Hawaii, proceeding through the Panama Canal on 24 May 1945 and, after conducting exercises while steaming in company with the submarine Argonaut (SS-475), reached Pearl Harbor on 10 June 1945. She departed Pearl on 2 July, unloading her cargo on 10 July at Eniwetok. The next five months, during which time hostilities came to an end in mid-August, she shuttled cargo and ranged from Guam to China.
After discharging equipment in China, she departed Tsingtao on 29 November 1945 for the U.S. Montague operated off the east coast for the next two years, and participated in training exercises in the Caribbean. Getting underway from Norfolk, Va., on 3 January 1948, she sailed for duty with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. She returned to Norfolk on 15 March, and participated in amphibious exercises off the east coast before getting underway on 13 September to rejoin the Sixth Fleet, returning to Morehead City, N.C., on 24 January 1949. She spent the next 15 months training off the east coast, and in the Caribbean.
She departed Morehead City on 2 May 1950 for her third tour of duty with the Sixth Fleet. Receiving orders to support United Nations action in Korea in August in the wake of the North Korean invasion of South Korea in June 1950, she transited the Suez Canal, arriving at Kobe, Japan, on 9 September. Anchored off Inchon, she disembarked troops and cargo from 8 October to 16 October. After a run to Kobe she embarked troops at Inchon, disembarking them at Wonsan on the east coast. Then she sailed to Chinnampo, the port city of the North Korean capital, to embark refugees. She continued to operate between Hungnam and Wonsan, and the port of Pusan until returning to Japan on 29 December. She cruised between Korea and Japan for three months, before sailing home, arriving at San Diego on 28 April 1951.
Between 1951 and 1954, Montague made three more voyages to the Far East, visiting ports in the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. On her last tour of duty, she departed Japan on 2 August 1954, and proceeded to Indochina to participate in Operation Passage to Freedom, in which refugees from Communist-governed North Vietnam embarked in U.S. Navy ships, fleeing to non-Communist South Vietnam.
Montague returned to the west coast, and anchored on 9 October 1954 at Long Beach. Decommissioned on 22 November 1955, she was berthed at Mare Island, Calif., as a unit of the Pacific Reserve Fleet.
Transferred to the Maritime Administration (MarAd) (the successor to the Maritime Commission) on 29 January 1960, Montague entered the National Defense Reserve Fleet at 3:00 p.m. on 11 February 1960, being berthed in the Olympia, Wash., fleet. Permanently transferred to MarAd custody on 30 June 1960, at Olympia, the well-traveled veteran of service in the Korean War and Passage to Freedom was sold for scrap on 12 March 1971, and physically delivered to her purchaser, the West Waterway Lumber Co., at 9:36 a.m. on 2 April 1971.
Montague received four battle stars for her Korean War service.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
13 October 2023
