Veterans of the USS Calvert (APA-32) and family members will be visiting Calvert County for the first time on Thursday, October 2, as part of their annual reunion in Baltimore. The USS Calvert Associates was started in 1979 by the late John Cole to bring together former crewmembers of the USS Calvert and their families. The Calvert Marine Museum serves as the repository for the USS Calvert Collection – objects, documents and other memorabilia donated by members over the years. See some of this collection on display at the Prince Frederick Library, now through the end of October.
USS Calvert was built in Baltimore and commissioned in October 1942. The amphibious assault ship participated in Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa later that year, and the invasion of Sicily in 1943. She spent the remainder of World War II in the Pacific earning further battle honors in landings at Makin Island, the Marshall Islands, Saipan, Tinian and the Philippines. The ship continued to serve through the Korean War, and the early years of Vietnam, and was decommissioned in May 1966. USS Calvert was sold for scrap on February 14, 1977.
While in Calvert County, the veterans will visit the former site of the Naval Amphibious Training Base in Solomons, the Calvert Marine Museum, and the exhibit at the Prince Frederick Library. For more information, contact Richard Dodds, CMM’s Maritime History Curator at 410-326-2042 ext. 31.