In the first year of America’s entry into World War II, U.S. Navy vessels operated under punishing wartime conditions that demanded extraordinary endurance from ships and crews alike. A continuous cruise of 104 days at sea without returning to port was a remarkable achievement — more than three months of sustained operations sustained by underway replenishment and the discipline of wartime routine. This four-page feature in the October 1942 Bureau of Naval Personnel Information Bulletin — the publication later renamed All Hands — documented the cruise, the ship’s company, and the daily demands of keeping a warship ready for action through an unbroken stretch of wartime service in the Pacific.
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