1953 – 1955
Departing Norfolk on 6 January 1953, Belle Grove proceeded to Charleston, South Carolina, for repairs and alterations. During that overhaul, which lasted until 26 March, she received word of her impending reassignment to the Pacific Fleet. After post-overhaul refresher training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the ship headed for Panama in mid-April. She transited the canal on 20 April and reached San Diego on 1 May. Three days later, she put to sea for Operation "Barchange", an Arctic supply mission to support the embryonic continental defense systems being constructed in Alaska. She stopped at Seattle to load equipment and supplies before sailing for the Aleutians on 12 May. Belle Grove shuttled between Seattle and Alaskan locales such as Cold Bay, Naknek, Kodiak, Unimak, and Barrow, through mid-September 1953. Departing Seattle on 22 September, she reached San Diego on the 26th, and remained there into the following year undergoing repairs and receiving the modifications necessary for operations in a radiation-contaminated environment.
On 2 January 1954, the dock landing ship sailed for Pearl Harbor in preparation for Operation Castle, a six-detonation atmospheric nuclear test slated to occur at Bikini and Eniwetok atolls in the Marshall Islands. Arriving at Bikini Atoll on 19 January, Belle Grove resumed the familiar role of transport and "mother" ship to a boat pool of 26 small craft. In addition, before each test, the ship evacuated people and boats from the test sites. Following each test, she quickly returned to the lagoon to enable LCM decontamination and recovery operations to proceed as soon as possible. The first five thermonuclear detonations occurred at Bikini between 1 March and 5 May, and the last one took place on 14 May at Eniwetok.
On 17 May, Belle Grove sailed for home and, after stopping briefly at Pearl Harbor on the 26th, moored at San Diego on 3 June. Following three months of upkeep and training, the ship got underway for the central Pacific on 26 September. Arriving at Kwajalein on 6 October, she spent the next two weeks shuttling supplies and equipment among the Marshalls before sailing for Guam. From there, the ship proceeded to Sangley Point in the Philippines, delivered cargo, and then set sail for home on the 30th. Steaming via Eniwetok, Midway, and Astoria, Oreg., she arrived at San Diego on 23 November.
On 11 January 1955, Belle Grove entered Long Beach Naval Shipyard for an overhaul and remained there until 27 April. Following a short period of refresher training, the ship departed Long Beach for Seattle on 9 May. Intelligence suggesting an increase in the Soviet long-range bomber threat had accelerated air defense and early warning system construction in Alaska, and the dock landing ship received another resupply mission to those Arctic outposts. Over the next five months, she shuttled between Seattle and the Alaskan ports of Anchorage, Kodiak, Naknek, Cape Newenham, Northeast Cape, Nome, Tin City, Cape Beaufort, Cape Lisburne, and Point Barrow. At one point, just before a change of command ceremony, the ship encountered such severe ice conditions that the new captain had to utilize an Inuit "skin-boat" to cross the harbor to board ship. Returning to Long Beach on 2 October, she spent a short time in the shipyard to repair damage sustained in the Bering Sea ice pack but soon resumed the underway training off southern California that occupied her time for the remainder of the year.
Read more about this topic: USS Belle Grove (LSD-2)