USS Starling
1942 Auk-class minesweeper
USS Starling (AM-64) was an Auk-class minesweeper acquired by the United States Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.
Starling was named after the starling, which is any passerine bird of the genus Sturnus or of the family, Sturnidae.
The second Starling to be so named by the Navy, AM-64 was laid down on 1 July 1941 by the General Engineering and Drydock Co., Alameda, California; launched on 11 April 1942; and commissioned on 21 December 1942.
World War II Pacific operations
After fitting out and a short shakedown period, Starling sortied from San Francisco, California, on 22 January 1943 with a convoy bound for Hawaii and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 1 February. On 16 April, she sailed for the South Pacific. From 25 April to early July, the minesweeper shuttled between Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, the New Hebrides, and New Caledonia. She escorted a convoy from Noumea to Guadalcanal on 2 July and, from the 5th to the 16th, patrolled in the Solomon Islands between Lunga and Tulagi. She then resumed inter-island convoy duty which occupied her until mid-October.
Starling, with Dash (AM-88) and Constant (AM-86), swept the Ferguson Passage off Kolombangara from 23 to 27 October, and they destroyed 135 mines. From, 29 October to 1 November, they cleared the minefield in Kula Gulf and then swept Vella Gulf from 3 to 6 November.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Starling” 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.