USS Pine Island (AV-12), a Currituck-class seaplane tender

 

USS PINE ISLAND

USS Pine Island (AV-12), a Currituck-class seaplane tender, is the only ship of the United States Navy to hold this name. The ship was named after Pine Island Sound (off the coast of Lee County, Florida).

Pine Island was laid down on 16 November 1942 at the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, San Pedro, California; launched on 26 February 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Knefler McGinnis; and commissioned on 26 April 1945, Commander Henry Titus Hodgskin in command.

World War II

Departing California on 16 June 1945, Pine Island steamed to Okinawa. There she tended seaplanes engaged in air-sea rescue operations during the final phases of World War II. At the end of the war, she entered Tokyo Bay and contributed seaplane flight operations to the occupation of Japan in 1945. Following occupation duty in Japan, she conducted seaplane flight operations in the Whangpoo River near Shanghai, China. She left the Pacific in 1946, and steamed via the Suez Canal to Norfolk, Virginia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pine_Island_(AV-12)