USS Vireo (MSC-205)

Vireo was laid down 14 September 1953, by Bellingham Shipyards, Bellingham, Washington; launched on 30 April 1954, as AMS-205; sponsored by Mrs. Arvin E. Olsen; reclassified as MSC-205, on 7 February 1955; and commissioned on 7 June 1955, Lieutenant (jg) Leland E. Mench in command.[2]

After completing tests and trials at Seattle, Vireo moved south at the beginning of July, for shakedown training out of San Diego. The cruise occupied her until the second week in September, at which time she began preparations for final acceptance trials to be conducted early in November. Upon passing those tests on 4 November, Vireo became an active unit of Mine Squadron (MinRon) 7. She operated from Long Beach, California, until 1 March 1956, when she stood out of that port, bound for the western Pacific. En route, she stopped at Pearl Harbor and, for the remainder of March, and the entire month of April, the minesweeper conducted training operations in Hawaiian waters. She resumed her voyage westward on 9 May, and arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, on 31 May.[2]

Vireo served at Sasebo, Japan, as a unit of MinRon for almost a decade and one-half. Her 14 years and months in the Far East can be divided into two easily discernible periods. The first eight years, from June 1956 to July 1964, were devoted entirely to peace time operations out of Sasebo. These included minesweeping exercises with other ships of the United States Navy and with units of the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force as well as with navies of the Republic of Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. She visited such diverse places as the Sea of Japan, the coast of Korea, the Philippine Islands, Okinawa, and the East and South China Seas. She punctuated her operations with port calls at Hong Kong, Okinawa, Keelung and Kaphsiung on Taiwan, Subic and Manila Bay in the Philippines, and at a host of Japanese ports including, among others, Beppu, Kobe, Kagoshima, Sasebo, and Yokosuka. The visits allowed her crew to rest after operations at sea, to replenish stores and supplies, and to refurbish the ship. During the crisis in 1958, over the Nationalist-held islands of Quemoy and Matsu, located just off the communist Chinese mainland, Vireo rushed from Japan to join American forces in the area and spent the months of September and October, patrolling near the islands. In November, she resumed her routine peacetime minesweeping exercises, port calls, and occasional salvage or rescue operations. Activities such as these characterized her duty until mid-summer 1964.[2]

Over the next four and one-half years, Vireo maintained her schedule of "Market Time" patrols alternated with unilateral and multilateral mining exercises and port visits at various places throughout the Orient. On 1 August 1970, Vireo learned that her home port had been changed from Sasebo to Long Beach, where she was scheduled to begin duty as a Naval Reserve training ship on 1 October. She departed Sasebo on 17 August, and, after stops at Yokosuka and Pearl Harbor, arrived in Long Beach on 17 September. On 1 October, the minesweeper was placed out of commission. That same day, she departed Long Beach for her Naval Reserve duty station, Seattle.[2]

After four years and six months of operations along the northwest coast of the United States, Vireo began deactivation preparations on 1 April 1975. Three months later, on 1 July 1975, her name was struck from the Navy list. On 1 October 1975 she was transferred to the Fijian Navy and renamed Kula. She was discarded in 1985[2][1]

Citations

• Photo gallery of USS Vireo (AMS/MSC-205) at NavSource Naval History