[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 9, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRIBUTE TO THE CREW OF THE U.S.S. ``PHAON''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES M. TALENT

                              of missouri

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, March 9, 1999

  Mr. TALENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to praise the officer and crew of the 
U.S.S. Phaon, and their sister ships within the Mobile Service 
Squadrons. Although often overlooked, their contribution to the War in 
the Pacific was central to U.S. and allied success in that theater.
  A close reading of history will show that America's naval strategy in 
the Pacific theater, which called for the ability to maintain 
continuous operations at extreme distances from American port 
facilities, was in a very real sense made possible through the efforts 
and sacrifice of the Navy's logistics repair squadrons.
  Japan's wartime plans envisioned an active defense across the 
periphery of its sphere of control, thus denying the United States the 
bases from which to launch and support offensive operations. Their 
leadership never prepared for the likelihood that their own forces, 
operating at extended distances from home port, would be forced to 
fight against an American navy that would develop and refine the 
ability to conduct nearly continuous offensive operations. Under 
Admirals Halsey and Spruance, the Japanese would commit to battle at 
one point and then find themselves overextended, or ``whipsawed,'' as 
American forces struck elsewhere. ``Hit 'em where they ain't.''
  Underpinning this effort, and indeed making much of America's success 
in the Pacific possible, were the essential contributions made by the 
Navy's mobile Service Squadrons, which provided at-sea battle damage 
repair in order to return vessels to combat duty as quickly as 
possible. The Phaon, a battle damage repair ship within Mobile Service 
Squaron Ten, and her sister ships, materially contributed to fleet 
support at Tawara, Kwayalein, Eniwetok, Saipan and Tinian. In the words 
of historian Eric Larrabee, ``[t]he fleet had become truly free of its 
landbound bases.''
  While much glory is rightly given to the front-line combatants, it is 
important that we should also recognize the contributions and the 
sacrifice of our combat support personnel who made ultimate victory 
possible.

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