U. S. S. BANNER
AKL-25
A web site devoted to Chichi
Jima really would not be complete without saying something about the
ship that served as our life line to Guam. Although I suspect
that most of
us took that little ship for granted, it served a very useful purpose
in
supplying us with what we needed. She had a somewhat irregular
schedule, but I seem to recall that she came in to Chichi approximately
every six weeks or so. She brought everything from equipment,
fresh and frozen food, mail, goods for the islanders and personnel.
On the return trip, she took frozen fish, langousta, and even
fruit bats for the islander fishermen back to Guam for sale there.
She was small and she was slow. I am sure that some of her
trips to Chichi were rough ones when the weather was bad. While I
knew nothing of her background at the time, I later found out that this
was actually the second "Banner." I found that Banner is
actually a county in Nebraska. Interestingly, she was originally built
for the Army
at Kewaunee, Wisconsin by the Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering
Corporation
but was transferred to the Navy in July, 1950 and commissioned in
November,
1952.
The picture above is exactly the way I remember the Banner when she was
tied up to the Banner Pier on Chichi Jima, although this picture was
not
taken there. However, Banner was not to continue with her rather
mundane mission much longer.
Those of us on Chichi Jima were surprised to learn that, although
Banner had departed Guam for Chichi on her regular schedule, shortly
thereafter she was recalled to Guam where she quickly unloaded our
cargo and departed immediately for the States. We never saw our little
supply ship again and had no idea of the reason for this sudden change.
A few months later, in September 1966, I
left Chichi Jima and the Navy without really knowing what had happened
to
the Banner. Later, in January 1968, I started to hear references
to
the "Banner Class" of ships in stories concerning the capture of the
Pueblo. Then
I started to suspect what had happened to "our" Banner. I
subsequently
learned that Banner was the first of three AGER vessels. AGER
means
Auxiliary General Environmental Research. These were small ships
converted
for use in gathering electronic and signal intelligence. Thus
AKL-25
shown above had become AGER-1 as shown below.
Interestingly, another photo exists in which the conversion has already
been
done, but Banner still carries the number 25 as shown below.
I want to mention that the three Banner pictures above are not mine.
They
were lifted from the web site of Joe Glockner who graciously gave
permission
to use them. His site and links provide some very interesting
reading
and I have provided a link to his site on my LINKS page.
As mentioned above, Banner was the first AGER vessel. AGER-2 was
USS
Pueblo which, along with Banner, operated in the Pacific, and as we
know
was captured by North Korea and is still held there. AGER-3 was
the
USS Palm Beach which operated in the Atlantic.
My father-in-law, Willie Savory was one of the Bonin Islanders who had
many friends among the crew of Banner-AKL 25 when it served
Chichi Jima. He was especially proud of being made an "honorary
crewmenber." The crew gave him his certificate and a ship's
plaque which are shown below. Some of the crew were very helpful
to him by doing errands for him on Guam and obtaining items not
readily available on Chichi Jima. Many of them spent considerable
time at his home in Yankee-town when in port at Chichi Jima.
