1944: A Rescue and Salvage Ship is Launched in the San Francisco Bay Area

December 23, 1944

A little over three years after the United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies, the U.S. Navy rescue and salvage ship USS Bolster (ARS-38) was launched at a shipyard of the Basalt Rock Company. This company, which was located just south of the San Francisco Bay Area’s city of Napa. had started out in 1920 as rock quarry operator but eventually expanded its services to also include the construction of Navy vessels.

Rescue and salvage ships are built and used to come to the aid of stricken vessels. In a military context, this aid can take on the form of everything from mitigating damage to warships that have been battered in a combat zone to towing those ships out of harm’s way altogether and to a safe area for urgently needed repairs.

The launch of Bolster into the Napa River took place on a Saturday morning. The ship’s sponsor for this ceremony was Anne Katherine Mayo (1913-1993). She was the wife of Navy Lieutenant Clarence Arthur Mayo Jr. (1913-2002), a technical officer with the Navy’s Office of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding. This office was established in 1940 to oversee the construction of Navy ships by private contractors based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

After being commissioned into the Navy on May 1, 1945, Bolster was assigned to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. She was used for various repair duties along the California coast before being deployed to Pearl Harbor in July of that year. She remained there until August 15, the same day that Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender to the Allies. (The formal surrender ceremony would be held aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2.)

Bolster made her way to Japan, where she was used for peacetime repair and salvage missions in those waters. During the fall of 1946, the ship was deployed to the Philippines and served there until returning to Pearl Harbor in the spring of the following year. The subsequent assignments for Bolster included support for vessels in large-scale military operations during the Korean War. These operations included the amphibious invasion of Inchon; and the evacuation of civilians and United Nations forces from the North Korean port city of Hungnam.

Bolster was deployed as well in the Vietnam War. One of the major accomplishments of her crew during this war involved helping to extract the tank landing ship USS Clarke County (LST-601) from a beach at the town of Đức Phổ after that tank landing ship was grounded there. Bolster was awarded the Combat Action Ribbon for her service in the Vietnam War.

Nearly a half-century after her launch, Bolster was decommissioned on September 24, 1994. She struck from Naval Vessel Register that same day. (The accompanying photo of Bolster at sea was taken in June 1974.)

Photo Credit: Public Domain

For more information on USS Bolster (ARS-38), please check out https://www.navsource.net/archives/09/37/3738.htm