LSD - 18: dp. 4,960 l. 457'9" b. 72'2" dr. 18' s.15 k. cpl. 326 a. 1 x 5" cl. Casa Grande
Colonial (LSD-18) was launched 28 February 1945 by
Newport News Shipbuilding and
Drydock Co., Newport News, Va.; sponsored by Mrs. L. L. Dean- and
commissioned 15
May 1945, Lieutenant Commander J. A. Paterson, USNR, in command.
Colonial cleared
Norfolk 26 July 1945 for the Panama Canal, San Francisco and Pearl
Harbor,
arriving 5 September. Between 11 September and 26 December, she
had duty ferrying
landing craft among the Pacific Islands and to Okinawa. She sailed
from Pearl
Harbor 29 December for the Panama Canal and Norfolk, arriving 23
January 1946.
Colonial participated in amphibious training out of Norfolk,
conducting local,
east coast, and Caribbean operations, and voyaging from Cuba and
Puerto Rico as
far north as Newfoundland until 15 August 1950, when she cleared
Norfolk for Far
Eastern duty. Calling at San Diego en route to Kobe, Colonial
landed men and
tanks of the 1st Marines at Inchon in September, and troops and
equipment at
Wonsan and Iwon in December. She acted as "mother ship" for
minesweepers on the
Korean east coast for a month during this tour, returning to San
Diego, her new
home port, 27 August. Here she was overhauled and had underway
training before
returning to Japan and Korea for duty from 17 January to 4
November 1952. During
this tour she supported minesweepers working in Wonsan Harbor, and
took part in
amphibious training. From the close of the Korean war into 1960,
Colonial
continued to alternate local operations and training out of San
Diego with
periodic deployments to the Far East. She transported Marines to
Korea from 5
August to 9 September 1953, returning to the western Pacific in
October for a
tour which ended in July 1954. After aiding in the development of
the vertical
envelopment concept of amphibious assault employing helicopters,
she returned to
the Orient early in 1955 for a tour of duty which included
participation in the
evacuation of the Tachen Islands. In the summer of 1956,
Colonial served as a
floating laboratory in experiments with balloon-launched rockets,
returning to
the Far East in 1957. On 30 May she went to the rescue of a
grounded Chinese
freighter. On her 1958-59 deployment, she provided repair parts
and skilled hands
for the American merchant tanker Wang Bucaneer, disabled at
sea in January.
Colonial received seven battle stars for Korean war
service.