2/23/2024 0 Comments 1945 naval armadaSorlen was set up as a shop for maintaining and repairing the 105 LCVPs and 45 LCMs that became beasts of all work in the absence of small boats. ![]() Asor had room for a headquarters: port director, radio station, evaporator (rain is the only freshwater supply), tents, small boat pier, cemetery. The natives on the four largest islands were moved to smaller Fassarai, and every inch of these four was quickly put to use. Navy arrived in September 1944 and found resident about 400 natives, and three Japanese soldiers. Three dozen little islands rise slightly above the sea, the largest only half a square mile in area. The reef runs roughly twenty miles north and south by ten miles across enclosing a vast anchorage with an average depth of 80 to 100 feet - the only suitable anchorage within 800 miles. It is a typical volcanic atoll with coral, white sand, and palm trees. Ulithi is 360 miles southwest of Guam, 850 miles east of the Philippines, 1300 miles South of Tokyo. The war had moved on to the Japanese homeland, and the press was not printing ancient history about Ulithi. By the time security released the name, the remarkable base of Ulithi was a ghost. Ulithi, the biggest and most active naval base in the world was indeed tremendous but it was unknown. In March 1945, 15 battleships, 29 carriers, 23 cruisers, 106 destroyers, and a train of oilers and supply ships sailed from "a Pacific base." What was this base? The mightiest force of naval Power ever assembled must have required a tremendous supporting establishment. ![]() Its existence kept secret throughout the war, the US naval base at Ulithi was for a time the world’s largest naval facility.
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