[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15551]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          USS ``PONCHATOULA''

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, today I wish to honor a naval vessel and 
crew that served with distinction during an important chapter of U.S. 
military history.
  The Navy's modernization program of the 1950s included construction 
of a new class of fleet tankers that combined speed and an enlarged 
capacity to deliver fuel to the fleet. One of the vessels ordered in 
this modernization effort was named the USS Ponchatoula, AO-148. The 
vessel was laid down in Camden, NJ on March 1, 1954. The new fleet 
tanker displaced 38,000 tons when fully loaded greatly exceeding the 
capacity of tankers used during World War II. The ship had a complement 
of 324 officers and men. Although the USS Ponchatoula was a support 
vessel rather than a combat warship, she was armed with two 5-inch guns 
and twelve 3-inch antiaircraft guns.
  The launching of the USS Ponchatoula into the waters of the Delaware 
River took place on July 9, 1954, at Camden, and she subsequently 
sailed across the river to Philadelphia, where the vessel was 
commissioned on January 12, 1956.
  Assigned to the Pacific Fleet, USS Ponchatoula made the long voyage 
to the west coast. Following her arrival at Long Beach, CA, on March 
10, 1956, the oiler conducted her shakedown cruise off the California 
coast.
  In the fall of 1956, USS Ponchatoula was ordered to the western 
Pacific, her home waters for most of her active career. While en-route 
to Sasebo, Japan, to join Seventh Fleet as a unit of Service Squadron 
Three, she assisted a disabled Panamanian merchant ship that had been 
battered by two typhoons.
  USS Ponchatoula accompanied the Seventh Fleet in early 1958 as the 
Navy sailed into harm's way in the Formosa Strait off the coast of the 
People's Republic of China, PRC. PRC forces were threatening to occupy 
several small islands off the coast of China, notably Quemoy and Matsu. 
President Eisenhower ordered the Navy to the area to symbolize American 
determination and support Taiwanese forces holding those small islands. 
President Eisenhower's tough stand and the presence of the Seventh 
Fleet off shore forced the PRC to back down.
  In late April and early May of 1962, USS Ponchatoula replenished 
ships in the task force that participated in the atmospheric nuclear 
test Operation Dominic near Christmas Island.
  In September 1962, the oiler sailed to Midway Island to supply ships 
involved in the recovery of CDR Wally Schirra's Project Mercury Space 
Capsule Sigma 8 and in May 1963 supported the recovery of the then-
Major Gordon Cooper's Mercury Space Capsule Faith 7. USS Ponchatoula 
also supported recovery operations for Gemini 4, 6, and 7 in 1965 and 
Apollo 7 in 1968.
  When hostilities began to escalate in Vietnam during the summer and 
fall of 1964, USS Ponchatoula was deployed to the South China Sea to 
support fleet operations off the coast of Vietnam. She refueled 
numerous warships in those waters during the 1964 and 1965 bombing 
campaign against targets in North Vietnam.
  In the summer of 1969 and into 1970 the USS Ponchatoula returned to 
Pearl Harbor and served the fleet in Hawaiian waters.
  During the 1970s USS Ponchatoula's area of operations expanded into 
the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, reflecting growing U.S. Navy 
activity in that part of the globe. In September 1980 the ship was 
transferred to the Military Sealift Command, becoming USNS Ponchatoula, 
T-AO-148 and beginning operation with a mainly civilian crew. Based at 
Subic Bay for most of the next decade, she continued her underway 
replenishment work, helping maintain the Navy's mobility and striking 
power in an often troubled region. USNS Ponchatoula was inactivated in 
February 1992 and laid up at Suisun Bay, CA. Though stricken from the 
Naval Vessel Register at the end of August 1992, she remained in Navy 
custody until transferred to the Maritime Administration for disposal 
in May 1999.
  During the 43 years between her commissioning in 1956 and her 
transfer to the reserve fleet in 1999, the USS Ponchatoula rendered 
meritorious service to her country, helping to stop aggression in the 
Taiwan Strait, assisting the space program and supporting U.S. forces 
in Vietnam. She and the thousands of Navy sailors who served aboard her 
over the decades deserve the accolades of a grateful nation.

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