Wreck of USS APc-21 | Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, United States Navy

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, United States Navy

Laid down in May 1942 as a Coastal Minesweeper, by the time of her commission in February 1943 the USS APc-21 had been redesignated as a APc-1 Class Small Coastal Transport.

Assigned to the Pacific Theatre, the APc-21 assumed the unsung but vital role of ferrying stores, personnel and munitions around the myriad of islands in the Southern Solomons, all the while under constant threat of air, sea or submarine attack. After several months in theatre, the APc-21 was assigned to the naval task force operating in the campaign to retake the Bismarck Archipelago in late 1943, the APc-21 was operating in mid-December with a minesweeping force during the Amphibious Invasion of Arawe when the group came under heavy air attack by Japanese bombers.

Crews on the assembled ships and APc-21 manned their battle stations as the planes began making their attacks, and within minutes the Minesweeper USS YMS-50 was struck amidships by a bomb and went dead in the water. Several other landing craft were also damaged by strafing and near misses from bombs, but gunners on the APc-21 lent their fire support to keep the Japanese planes away from both their ship and the damaged craft, assisting in inflicting heavy losses on their attackers. As the air attack continued with unabated ferocity, a single Aichi D3A1 'Val' set its target on the APc-21 and made a steep dive onto the ship, and managed to elude the AA fire long enough to release its full bombload.

One of the three bombs from the Val slammed into the wooden hull of the APc-21 and passed clean through the ship without detonating, but the two which straddled her hull and did explode caused catastrophic shock damage to the small ships hull. After damage control parties saw that the water ingress was too much for the ships pumps, the APc-21 was ordered abandoned. All 25 of her crew were able to abandon ship and were quickly picked up by other ships in the landing force before the heavily damaged APc-21 foundered and sank at this location on December 17th, 1943.

For her actions on the day of her loss, the APc-21 was awarded her first and final Battle Star for World War Two service.

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