Ex - USS YOG-64 / M/T Francis Reinauer (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / Carteret / New York City, New York
 military, shipwreck, tanker (ship), United States Navy

Laid down in 1944 at the Albina Engine and Machine Works in Portland OR, YOG-64 was delivered for US Navy service in May 1945 and was promptly assigned for service in the Pacific. Arriving too late for Second World War service, she instead provided fuel and support for ships of the US Occupation Forces and the 'Magic Carpet' ships bringing home Veterans.

After three years of support work, YOG-64 and her crew steamed for Bikini Atoll, where she provided fuel for the ships and shoreside installations taking part in Operation Sandstone, the second major round of Nuclear Weapons testing carried out by the US. After testing concluded, the YOG-64 was towed from the US base at Kwajalein Atoll in May 1949 to Pearl Harbor where she was decontaminated and spent the next few years servicing ships of the US Pacific Fleet.

Sold into commercial service at the end of her US Navy career, the YOG-64 passed into the hands of Reinauer Towing and Transportation, which modernized and upgraded the tanker and used her for over two decades hauling intercoastal fuel loads under the name M/T Francis Reinauer. Age and her single-hull construction eventually caught up with the veteran tanker, and sometime in the mid-to-late 1980's she was sold to Witte Brothers Marine Salvage and made her final trip to the scrapyard, where she was moored and abandoned.

Today the hulk of the YOG-64/Francis Reinauer still awaits scrapping by Witte Brothers, lying half-sunk on the edge of the Arthur Kill.

www.navsource.org/archives/14/13064.htm
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   40°33'31"N   74°12'50"W
This article was last modified 11 years ago