USS Prairie (AD-15)

A floating workshop for American and other Allied destroyers, Prairie was “mother ship” to a squadron of destroyers at Argentia, the Atlantic terminus of the transatlantic convoy route. A fire from Spry (PG-64), secured astern of Prairie, spread to the tender 29 May 1942 and caused extensive damage. However, in his memoirs entitled U-Boat Killer, Captain Donald McIntyre, RN, attributes the fire to a leak in the supply pipe through which petrol was pumped along the wooden jetty that Prairie was secured. After repairing in Boston, Prairie returned to Argentia. On 22 February 1943, U.S. Coast Guard cutter Campbell (WPG-32) was rammed during an engagement with a German submarine; Prairie provided a complete overhaul, and Campbell sailed to the United States on 27 May.

Departing Argentia on 23 September, Prairie steamed to Boston and Pearl Harbor in November, to remain until February 1944. She departed Pearl Harbor on 7 February to move with advancing forces in operations against the Marshall Islands. Lying in sheltered waters, Prairie tended destroyers throughout the remainder of the war. Majuro Atoll had been secured on 7 February, and Prairie arrived there on the 13th to remain at this advantageous point for mobile supply during the costly campaign for Tarawa. Departing Majuro on 3 June, she steamed to Eniwetok, where she was while fighting progressed in the Mariana and Carolines. Reporting to Ulithi 8 October, Prairie was at war's end and remained until 1 October 1945, when she steamed to Tokyo Bay. On 30 November, she steamed home to San Francisco.

Prairie steamed to San Diego, destroyer force headquarters, 16 February 1946 and remained there until 11 August 1947. The Korean War demanded more hurried operations from Prairie, and she sailed to provide tending services for U.N. forces from 2 February to 3 August 1951 and again from 6 April to 10 September 1952, and from late August 1953 to 11 April 1954.