Whipstock (YO-49)
1942-1975
A lengthy steel casing used in drilling oilfields.
(YO-49: displacement 1,731; length 235'0"; beam 37'0"; complement 38; armament 2 .50-caliber machine guns)
Whipstock (YO-49), a fuel oil barge constructed in 1941 at Napa, Calif., by the Basalt Rock Co., Inc., was acquired by the Navy in mid-1942 and was placed in service on 23 September 1942, Lt. Russell P. Goodman, D-M, USNR, in command.
Information regarding Whipstock's wartime service is scarce. However, she probably carried fuel from storage areas to various rear-area bases in the western and southwestern Pacific. By May of 1945, she was located at Tulagi in the Solomon Islands. Through the summer, she made voyages to such diverse places as Tarawa, Johnston Island, Pearl Harbor, Midway Island, Saipan, and Okinawa. In October 1945, she moved to Japan where she began service supporting forces occupying Japan and China. She remained in the Far East supporting the occupation from 1946 to 1949. She was decommissioned and placed "in service" on 27 June 1947, with her personnel records being delivered to the hospital ship Repose (AH-16) for administrative control.
She was subsequently sold by the Navy, disposed-of via the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service to be broken up for scrap, on 1 September 1975.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
28 March 2022
