USS Goldcrest (AMCU-24)

With shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay, the new large infantry landing craft departed Key West, Florida, on 12 November for the Pacific, transited the Panama Canal on the 19th, and arrived San Diego, California, on 1 December. There she joined LCI Group 57, sailed for Hawaii on 29 January 1945, and arrived Pearl Harbor on 7 February.

LCI(L)-869 got underway for the war zone on the 15th, refueled at Johnston Island five days later, and reached the Palaus, via Majuro, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, and Guam, on 7 April. There she joined a picket line which had been formed to seal off by-passed Japanese-held islands in the area from reinforcements and to protect American bases from invasion. While on picket station, LCI(L)-869 repulsed a suicide swimming attack, sank several floating mines which threatened American ships, and heard countless mortar shells whined overhead.

On the afternoon of 2 September, the Japanese forces in the Palaus surrendered.

With her mission accomplished, LCI(L)-869 returned to the United States, decommissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, in March 1947, and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

The landing craft was renamed USS Goldcrest and redesignated AMc(U)-24 on 7 March 1952. USS Goldcrest was converted to a minehunter at the Charleston Navy Yard, assigned to the 6th Naval District, and operated out of Key West, Florida. She decommissioned at Charleston, South Carolina, in March 1955 and re-entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet at Charleston, South Carolina. There she was reclassified a coastal minehunter and redesignated MHC-24.

USS Goldcrest was struck from the Navy List on 1 January 1960 and scrapped.

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

• Photo gallery of USS Goldcrest at NavSource Naval History