Construction and World War II Avengers aboard
Siboney in 1949 The first fifteen ships of the
Commencement Bay class were ordered on 23 January 1943, allocated to Fiscal Year 1944. The ship, originally named
Frosty Bay, was built by the
Todd-Pacific Shipyards at
Tacoma, Washington. Her
keel was
laid down in 1 April 1944, and on 26 April she was renamed
Siboney, after the
village in Cuba where American forces invaded Cuba during the
Spanish–American War. The ship was
commissioned on 14 May 1945.
Fitting out work lasted for another nine days, and was done in
Seattle. On 31 May, the ship departed for
San Diego, California, passing through
Alameda on the way. She then conducted a
shakedown cruise in the San Diego area, which concluded on 3 August. The ship's crew then began loading aircraft and ammunition, and the pilots of Air Group 36 came aboard. By 8 August, the ship got underway for the western Pacific, where she was to join the
Japan campaign. On 15 August, the
Japan announced it would surrender, ending the war;
Siboney arrived in
Pearl Harbor the following day, and so she unloaded her cargo and remained in Hawaiian waters for the rest of the month. In early September, she departed for
Okinawa, Japan, passing through the
Marshall Islands,
Caroline Islands, and the Philippines on the way. She arrived in
Buckner Bay later that month.
Siboney left Okinawa on 5 October, bound for the main island of
Honshu. While on the way, she contributed aircraft to search operations attempting to locate the
Martin PBM Mariner that had been carrying
Rear Admiral William Sample, which had gone missing on 2 October.
Siboney stopped at various ports on Honshu from 8 to 11 October, before rejoining the search effort, which failed to locate the missing plane.
Siboney then sailed to
Tokyo Bay, from which she operated between 24 October and 16 November. She was then ordered to return to the United States, by way of
Manila in the Philippines;
Hong Kong, China;
Saipan and
Guam in the
Mariana Islands; and Pearl Harbor. She eventually reached San Diego on 23 January 1946. She made another cruise in the western Pacific from 15 February to 7 May.
Atlantic Fleet operations On 9 June 1947,
Siboney left San Diego, bound for the
East Coast of the United States. She passed through the
Panama Canal and arrived at
Norfolk, Virginia, which was her new home port, on 26 June. Over the following four months, she cruised between Norfolk and
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in November she was
laid up in
reserve status. The ship was reactivated in March 1948 to transport US Air Force aircraft to Turkey in May. After crossing the Atlantic, entering the
Mediterranean Sea, and unloading the planes in
Yesilkoy, Turkey, she returned to Norfolk, made preparations for another cruise to the Mediterranean. In October, she was dry-docked at the
Boston Naval Shipyard for an overhaul that lasted for three months. The ship left
Boston in January 1949, bound for Guantanamo, where she carried out refresher training. She took part in routine operations with the
Atlantic Fleet for the rest of the year, and on 6 December, she was again placed in reserve, this time at
Philadelphia. Following the start of the
Korean War in June 1950,
Siboney was reactivated on 22 November, as the US Navy needed to transfer active ships to the war zone.
Siboney remained in the Atlantic Fleet during this period, and first went to sea on 2 February 1951. Again based out of Norfolk, she sailed south to Guantanamo for extensive training maneuvers that lasted from 27 February to 10 April. She then returned north, and in July, she cruised off Canada. She made another voyage into the Mediterranean from September to 14 November, in company with warships from other
North Atlantic Treaty Organization fleets. In January 1952, she conducted tests and carrier qualifications with
A-1 Skyraiders and
F4U Corsairs. She also carried out a pair of tests with Marine
helicopter units during this period to evaluate their "vertical assault" concept, which envisioned using helicopter-borne assaults in conjunction with an amphibious invasion. Later that year,
Siboney was docked at the
Norfolk Naval Shipyard for modernization; she returned to active service with the fleet on 20 January 1952. She took part in training operations in the
Caribbean Sea and then formed the core of a anti-submarine hunter-killer group that operated together until August. On 16 September, she embarked on another cruise in the Mediterranean with elements of
Sixth Fleet, which lasted until 1 December.
Siboney passed the following two years participating in routine fleet training exercises that ranged from the coast of
New England to the Caribbean. During this period, she also made training cruises to Spain with
midshipmen from the
US Naval Academy in the summer months. She underwent an overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard from 28 September 1954 to 22 January 1955. On 4 October, she embarked supplies as part of a response to a severe
hurricane that had struck
Tampico, Mexico. She used her helicopters to ferry supplies to the city and surrounding area until 19 October.
Siboney resumed operations with the Atlantic Fleet in January 1956. Normal patrol and training duties followed through most of May, until the 26th, when she departed for another Mediterranean cruise with Sixth Fleet. The voyage lasted until 6 July; after a brief period at Norfolk, she sailed north to Philadelphia on 27 July, where she was decommissioned and placed in reserve four days later. By this time, the Navy had begun replacing the
Commencement Bay-class ships with much larger s, since the former were too small to operate newer and more effective anti-submarine patrol planes. Proposals to radically rebuild the
Commencement Bays either with an
angled flight deck and various structural improvements or lengthen their
hulls by and replace their propulsion machinery to increase speed came to nothing, as they were deemed to be too expensive.
Siboney was allocated to the
Atlantic Reserve Fleet, where she remained for more than a decade. She was struck from the
Naval Vessel Register on 1 June 1970 before being sold to the
Union Minerals and Alloys Corporation in 1971. She was then
broken up for
scrap metal. ==Notes==