USS Chestatee
1944 Patapsco-class gasoline tanker
USS Chestatee (AOG-49) was a Patapsco-class gasoline tanker in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946 and with the Military Sea Transportation Service from 1952 and 1956. From 1957 to 1962, she was lent to the United States Air Force. She was sold for scrap in 1975.
History
Chestatee was launched 29 April 1944 by Cargill Inc., Savage, Minnesota; sponsored by Mrs. J. D. Boren; and commissioned 14 December 1944.
World War II
Laden with oil products, Chestatee cleared Baytown, Texas, 14 January 1945 for San Pedro Bay, Leyte, where she arrived 1 March for duty transporting high-octane gasoline among the Philippine Islands.
On 27 July, while underway for Brunei Bay, Borneo, Chestatee struck a mine in the straits south of Balabac Island; five of her men were killed, eight injured, including the commanding officer LT. William N. Ohly, and the ship was damaged by the explosion and resulting fire. Among those killed was 30 year old Henry Bowden West of Greenville, NC. Carpenter First Class West left his wife, Lyda Catherine Craig West of Pickens County, SC, and their eleven month old son, Charles Henry West, in Charleston, SC.
Repaired at Puerto Princesa, Palawan, and Samar, Chestatee returned to her Philippine operations until 20 November 1945, when she sailed from Leyte for San Francisco, California, which she reached 13 January. There she was decommissioned 8 April 1946, and, on 30 June 1946, transferred to the Maritime Commission.
Military Sea Transportation Service (1952-1956)
Chestatee was returned to the Navy and placed in reserve, out of commission, in August 1948.
“USS Chestatee” enters the record as 1944 Patapsco-class gasoline tanker. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chestatee, Patapsco-class and gasoline can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7868287. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1946, 1952 and 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Chestatee” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.