Maritime History of the Great Lakes

Scanner, v. 35, no. 1 (October 2002), p. 7

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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. Roadstead (both in the Leyte Gulf area), assisting as necessary with the Guiuan Roadstead net defences. On April 15, 1945, SATINLEAF was assigned to the Amphibious Forces, 7th Fleet, and she sailed a week later with navigation buoys for the Tarakan landings, arriving off Tarakan, Borneo, on April 27. Thereafter, she placed the buoys to guide the assault ships along the mineswept channel. This mis­ sion ended on April 30 and SATINLEAF sailed on May 8th for Morotai, where she staged for the Brunei landings. Arriving off Brunei, Borneo, on June 7th, she again set navigation aids in the cleared channel. After the comple­ tion of this duty on June 9, she remained in the area providing general utility services until departing for the Leyte Gulf on June 25. SATINLEAF again helped to install net defences in the Guiuan Roadstead until she sailed to Manus on July 12 for an overhaul. Returning to Guiuan Roadstead on August 30th, after the Japanese surrender, SATINLEAF helped to remove net defences in the Leyte Gulf area until sailing for the United States on November 27 by way of Eniwetok (an atoll in the Marshall Islands) and Pearl Harbor. She arrived at San Pedro, California, on January 4, 1946 and moved from there to Tiburon, California (on San Fran­ cisco Bay), on February 13th to begin deactivation. SATINLEAF was decommis­ sioned on April 4, 1946, and she was stricken from the Navy list on May 8th, having been transferred on May 7 to the United States Maritime Commission for disposal. SATINLEAF had seen war service in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines and Borneo, and she had earned two battle stars for her service in the Western Caroline Islands. The U. S. Maritime Commission sought buyers for many naval vessels idled after the cessation of hostilities and, despite her wooden hull, a buyer was found for SATINLEAF. The purchaser was E. E. Johnson, of Fort William, Ontario, who acquired the tug on April 29, 1947 and made her a Great Lakes tug. Johnson, a dynamic lakehead "lumber baron", first entered the shipping business in 1932 when he became one of the founders of the Pigeon River Tim­ ber Company, which came to own a number of tugs and barges. In order to ship pulpwood from the lakehead to Green Bay, Wisconsin, Johnson and Capt. George Hindman, of Owen Sound, formed the Lakehead Transportation Company, of Fort William, in 1938. Johnson bought out Hindman's interest in 1940, and the as­ sets and vessels of the Lakehead Transportation fleet were transferred to a new company which E. E. Johnson incorporated in 1942. This new firm was Great Lakes Lumber and Shipping Limited, Fort William, and it was to this company that Johnson registered SATINLEAF. She was brought onto the Canadian register as C. 173189, enrolled at Fort William with no change in name. Her dimensions as recorded by the Canadian authorities were 174. 42' x 36. 42' x 19. 16', and her tonnage was calculated as 861 Gross and 536 Net. She was painted up with a green hull, white deck bulwarks and ca­ bins, buff masts and a black stack with a white band above a green band. Mr. Johnson had been on a pretty good post-W. W. II shopping spree the previ­ ous year, buying the steel-hulled tug LENAPE [U. S. 210528] which he brought to the lakes and later renamed for himself as (b) E. E. JOHNSON (ii) [C. 177312]. He also bought the former Canadian naval Fairmile (motor launch) Q-101, which was built by MacCraft at Sarnia in 1942, renaming her (b) EDMAR [C. 173183]. Two new small logging tugs, ANDY O . [C. 176538] and JUNE T. [C. 176539], both built by Russel Bros, at Owen Sound, Ontario, also were purchased in 1946. Johnson's 1947 shopping brought the tug ABELE, ex- YB-77 (U. S . S . ABELE) into Canadian registry [C. 173188]. ABELE, a virtual hull-sister of SATINLEAF, was built in 1943 by Barbour Boat Works at Bern, North Carolina. She was rede­ signated as Net Laying Ship AN-58 in 1944 for the duration of the war. Great Lakes Lumber and Shipping Limited sold this tug for off-lakes use in 1954, and she left the lakes under the name (c) SUPERIOR STRAITS, owned by Straits Towing Co. Ltd., Vancouver, British Columbia. This vessel last was reported in 1970 as owned by P & B Towing, North Vancouver, B. C. Her disposition is

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