USS Luzon (ARG-2)
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Date: 2022-01-18

USS Luzon (ARG-2), by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10094717 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Luzon-class_repair_ships
#Ships_built_in_Baltimore
#1943_ships
#World_War_II_auxiliary_ships_of_the_United_States
#United_States_Navy_Philippines-related_ships
#Suisun_Bay_Reserve_Fleet
USS Luzon （ARG-2） was an internal combustion engine repair ship that saw service in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the lead ship in a class of twelve and was named for the Island of Luzon,
the chief island in the northern Philippines and site of the capital city of Manila.
She is the second US Naval vessel to bear the name.
Luzon was laid down 8 April 1943, as liberty ship SS Samuel Bowles, under a Maritime Commission （MARCOM） contract, MCE hull 981, by the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard, Inc.
, in Baltimore, Maryland; launched 14 May 1943; sponsored by Mrs. H. E. Sigman; acquired by the Navy and renamed Luzon 24 May 1943; commissioned 12 October 1943, with Commander Elmer R. Runquist, in command.
After shakedown in Chesapeake Bay, she departed Norfolk, Virginia 28 November, for duty in the Pacific.
She transited the Panama Canal 6 December, and arrived the Ellice Islands 3 January 1944.
Assigned to Service Squadron 4, she operated at Funafuti and provided repair facilities for amphibious, patrol, and landing craft.
Following the invasion of the Marshall Islands on 31 January, she steamed for Kwajalein Atoll on 23 February, and arrived there on 4 March.
During the next 5 months, she served there as repair ship and tender for harbor craft.
As American seapower spearheaded the Allied advance across the Pacific, Luzon steamed to Guam after the conquest of the Marianas.
Departing Kwajalein on 2 September, she sailed via Eniwetok and reached Apra, Guam, on 11 September.
As a unit of Service Squadron 10, she maintained a busy repair schedule there until 1 March 1945, when she steamed to Saipan for 6 months of duty at that important harbor.
Following the surrender of Japan to the...