USS Trinity (AO-13) was a -class replenishment oiler of the United States Navy.
Construction and commissioning
Trinity was laid down on 10 November 1919 at Newport News, Virginia by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company; launched on 3 July 1920 and commissioned on 4 September 1920.
Service history
Pre-World War II
1920–1923
Following shakedown, Trinity got underway from Chesapeake Bay on 11 February 1921, bound for the Mediterranean. She arrived at Valletta, Malta and delivered general stores for USS Pittsburgh (CA-4) before proceeding to Split, Yugoslavia (present-day Croatia), with fuel oil for American ships operating in the Adriatic. After a three-day layover at Split, she got underway on 8 March for Venice, where she arrived on 12 March. She eventually called at Pula (then in Italy, now in Croatia), before making port at Brindisi to take on fuel oil and general supplies for the naval base at Constantinople, Turkey, and American naval forces operating in Turkish waters. Following the delivery of this cargo, Trinity sailed to Gibraltar, then departed there on 4 April and arrived at Tompkinsville, Staten Island, New York, on 17 April. Subsequently, based at Norfolk, Virginia and assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service, the oiler operated along the United States East Coast and in the Caribbean until she was decommissioned on 22 December 1923 and laid up at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
1938–1941
Trinity remained there, inactive, until growing tension in both Europe and the Far East prompted the Navy to enlarge its building programs, and to recondition and recommission old ships. Accordingly, Trinity was recommissioned at Philadelphia on 21 June 1938. She transported cargoes of oil from ports on the Gulf of Mexico to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Panama Canal Zone.
Transferred to the Pacific Fleet early in 1939, Trinity carried oil to Dutch Harbor, Alaska, for use by the Coast and Geodetic Survey. In the summer, she turned her attention to the Far East and conducted voyages from ports on the United States West Coast and in the Netherlands East Indies to the Philippine Islands, delivering fuel oil to storage facilities such as those on Sangley Point, near Cavite. Late in 1940, the oiler was transferred to the Asiatic Fleet.
She departed Manila Bay on 28 February 1941 to commence the first of eight round-trip voyages in that year to ports in oil-rich Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies. As war clouds gathered on the horizon in the summer of 1941, an organization plan was drawn up which designated Trinity as part of the Manila-based Task Force 2. At the end of the eighth voyage, Trinity arrived at Manila on 3 December 1941.
World War II
1941 — Escape from Manila
On 8 December, Trinity lay alongside the fuel docks at Sangley Point, discharging oil to the storage tanks ashore, when she received word from Admiral Thomas C. Hart that "Japan has commenced hostilities — govern yourselves accordingly."
With Japanese air attacks expected momentarily, Hart decided to send the two Navy oilers, Trinity and USS Pecos (AO-6), and seaplane tender USS Langley (AV-3) south from Manila Bay. Later that day, these three valuable auxiliaries, shepherded by USS Pope (DD-225) and USS John D. Ford (DD-228), departed in a hastily assembled convoy. Two days later, while the American ships sailed for Borneo, 80 Japanese bombers and 52 fighter planes attacked the American navy yard at Cavite, destroying it as a base for the Asiatic Fleet. Trinity had departed the area just in time.
The convoy reached Balikpapan, Borneo, on 14 December 1941. Trinity then commenced her wartime operations with the hard-pressed United States Asiatic Fleet.
South Pacific
After a one-month stay at Balikpapan fueling Allied warships, Trinity steamed first to Koepang Bay, Timor, and then to Kebola Bay, at Amor Island in the Netherlands East Indies. Standing out of Kebola Bay on 17 January 1942, Trinity set course for Australia, escorted by the destroyers and . The ships were in the Beagle Gulf west of Darwin, Australia, on the morning of 20 January 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine sighted Trinity heading toward Darwin. Misidentifying Trinity as a transport, I-123 fired four Type 89 torpedoes at Trinity at