Cimarron-class oiler USS Cimarron (AO-22), 1945: serving behind the scenes

TomLiu126 · April 14, 2025, 9:09pm

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USS Cimarron (AO-22) underway at sea, 16 November 1965 (source: File:USS Cimarron (AO-22) underway at sea on 16 November 1965 (NH 97824).jpg - Wikimedia Commons)

TL;DR: cruiser-sized, moderately armed replenishment oiler.

The USS Cimarron (AO-22) was the lead ship of her class of replenishment oilers. She had a long and eventful career, serving for nearly 30 years and earning 21 battle stars along with numerous other awards. From the Doolittle Raid and the Battle of Midway to the Blockade of Wonsan and Operation Passage to Freedom, she’s seen it all.

As the first of the “National Defense Tankers”, she was faster than her predecessors at 18 knots (though still slower than most bluewater warships) due to increased engine power and advanced hull design. Despite being an auxiliary vessel, the Cimarron was decently armed. Her main armament was four 5-inch/38-caliber dual-purpose guns, directed by the same Mark 37 GFCS used on destroyers and cruisers. Her secondary armament was much harder to determine due to source conflicts and the fact that her secondaries were changed over time. The 1945 refit I’m proposing here is the one I’m reasonably confident in, where she was armed with two twin 40 mm Bofors and four 20 mm Oerlikons (even then, there are sources claiming six or even twelve Oerlikons). Of course, she wasn’t meant to take any serious fire, so the only armour she had was special treatment steel (War Thunder calls it “antifragmentation armor”) of unknown thickness covering critical areas. Her large fuel tanks may also be able to soak up some damage in game.

N.B. There was also a later USS Cimarron, AO-177 commissioned in 1981, and even more confusingly, she was also the lead ship of another Cimarron-class of replenishment oilers. In the event someone suggests a ship from the other class, we could call the ship class of this suggestion the “1939 Cimarron-class” and the other the “1981 Cimarron-class”, or we could call this class by its alternative names, the “National Defense Tanker” or the “T3-S2-A1 type tanker”.

History

The second ship of the name, Cimarron was laid down on 25 April 1938 and launched on 7 January 1939. Sponsored by the wife of Admiral William D. Leahy, she was commissioned on 20 March 1939 under the command of then Lieutenant Commander William Wohlsen Behrens (retired as Rear Admiral, father of Vice Admiral William Wholsen Behrens Jr.). Initially transporting oil between the West Coast and Hawaii, she was sent to the Philadelphia Naval Yard on 19 August 1940, arriving on 22 September, to add features such as oiling at sea gear and her armament were planned but not installed at the time of her construction. After six months of refits, she returned to transporting oil across the East Coast. However, the world was heating up with war by now. She sailed with a convoy to Iceland from 5 to 16 September 1941 and then sailed further north from 12 October to 5 November to refuel ships at Placentia Bay. On 15 November she joined a convoy from Trinidad to Singapore carrying reinforcements but left the convoy at Cape Town on 9 December. Two days earlier, Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor and the previous day the US declared war on Japan, which may have been the reason for her being called back. She returned to Trinidad on 31 December and continued to sail with convoys from Brazil to Iceland until she cleared Norfolk for San Francisco on 4 March 1942. This is where the action starts.

Cimarron reached San Francisco on 1 April 1942 and left the next day to join the task force responsible for launching the daring Doolittle Raid on the Japanese mainland. She and her sister ship USS Sabine (AO-25) refuelled the task force before and after the raid (they were too slow to keep up with the high-speed dash into Japanese territorial waters) and returned to Pearl Harbor on 25 April. She left soon after on 29 April to join the US fleet for the Battle of the Coral Sea but only arrived after the battle’s end and instead refuelled destroyers at Nouméa before returning to Pearl Harbor on 26 May. She didn’t stay for long either this time, leaving again on 28 May to join Task Force 16 for the Battle of Midway. She and three other oilers refuelled US ships throughout the operation. After Midway she participated in many battles and operations that are too numerous to describe in detail here: Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal, Wake Island, Gilbert and Marshall Islands, Mariana and Palau Islands, Luzon, Okinawa… Of her 21 battle stars, 10 were earned during World War II, a testament to her active service.

After the war ended, Cimarron continued to support the occupation of Japan and other Far East operations, first from Ulithi and later from Tokyo Bay, until returning to San Pedro on 4 February 1946 for overhauls. From July 1946 to June 1950, she ferried oil from the Persian Gulf to naval bases in the Marianas and Marshall Islands. However, another war was on the horizon. With the outbreak of the Korean War in June, she embarked on her first tour of duty in the new war on 6 July 1950. She refuelled ships patrolling the Taiwan Strait, amphibious ships off Kobe, and task forces off the Korean coast. She even traversed the heavy minefields off Wonsan to refuel ships carrying out the blockade and bombardment of that key port. Her first tour of Korean duty ended on 3 June 1951, and she undertook two more from 1 August to 10 December 1951 and from 9 April 1952 to 5 January 1953. Her next tour of Far East duty was from 11 April to 27 November 1953. Between 14 June 1954 and 8 February 1955, she served in the Far East again, this time as flagship of the support group for Operation Passage to Freedom, the evacuation of more than 310,000 Vietnamese civilians and soldiers and French troops from communist North Vietnam to non-communist South Vietnam. She served further tours of duty in the Far East during 1955, 1956-57, 1957-58, 1958-59, 1959, and 1960. In 1963, she had the longest continuous commissioned service of any active ship in the United States Navy, and she had served efficiently and effectively through these many years.

Cimarron was decommissioned on 1 October 1968 and was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 10 October. She was transferred to the Maritime Administration on 15 September 1969 and sold to the Levin Metals Corp. simultaneously, which took delivery of her on 17 October to be broken up for scrap.

Specifications

Compliment: 304
Displacement: 7,470 t (light), 25,425 t (full load)
Length: 168.6 m
Beam: 13.7 m
Draft: 9.9 m
Max speed: 18 kt (33 km/h)
Propulsion: 4 boilers, 2 screws
Armament:

4x 5-inch/38-caliber dual-purpose guns
2x twin 40 mm Bofors
4x 20 mm Oerlikons

Fire control:

Mark 37 GFCS

More pictures

Blueprints of the Cimarron also exist at Category:USS Cimarron (AO-22) - Wikimedia Commons.

USS Cimarron at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 6 February 1942, painted in camouflage (source: File:USS Cimarron (AO-22) - 19-N-30121.tiff - Wikimedia Commons)

091902224

Diagram of Cimarron’s camouflage scheme (source: https://www.navsource.org/archives/09/19/091902224.jpg)

USS Cimarron performing an underway replenishment for USS Hornet (CV-12) and USS Nicholas (DD-449) off the coast of North Vietnam, c. 1966 (source: File:USS Cimarron (AO-22) replenishes USS Hornet (CV-12) and USS Nicholas (DD-449), 1966.jpg - Wikimedia Commons)

USS Cimarron alongside USS Enterprise (CV-6) during the Doolittle Raid (source: https://www.navsource.org/archives/09/19/091902254.jpg)

USS Cimarron performing an underway replenishment for USS Enterprise (CV-6) on 28 January 1944 (source: https://www.navsource.org/archives/09/19/091902223.jpg)

Sources

NotKringe · April 15, 2025, 2:01am

I love an assuming-looking ship that is surprisingly well-armed. So it’s a +1 for me.