Ships
- USS Zeilin (AP-9) In command, 7 August 1942
Captain Pat Buchanan, United States Navy, a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 1911, was the first commanding officer of the transport Zeilin. The Navy had acquired the former liner President Jackson in 1940 and converted her to a troop transport at Seattle. She was commissioned on 3 January 1942 with Buchanan in command.
Zeilin trained on the West Coast, then left San Diego on 13 April 1942 with garrison troops for Samoa and returned on 17 June. On 8 July she sailed again, stopped at Pearl Harbor, and continued to Suva in Fiji to prepare for the first large Allied landing in the Solomon Islands. In the opening days of August she joined Task Force 62 at sea and headed for Guadalcanal.
Buchanan was in command of Zeilin early on 7 August 1942, when the ship arrived off Guadalcanal with the South Pacific Amphibious Force. The next day she landed Marines of the 3rd Defense Battalion on Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tanambogo, where they reinforced the 2nd Marines against the Japanese detachments on those islands. Once the troops were ashore, Zeilin left for Noumea.
Buchanan kept Zeilin on the Guadalcanal run through the autumn, and in November he was also commander of Transport Division Four. On 13 October the ship took part in landing the 164th Infantry as reinforcement for the garrison. On 11 November she was off Lunga Point unloading supplies when Japanese dive bombers attacked and a bomb struck her aft. Buchanan kept the damaged transport afloat and took her clear under her own power. He received the Silver Star for his command of Zeilin during those Solomon Islands operations.
He next organized and conducted the ship-to-shore movement for the landings at Attu in May 1943 and at Kiska that August. In 1944, serving under the Pacific amphibious command, he led a transport group at Roi-Namur and at Guam, and between those two assaults he directed the same work at Hollandia on New Guinea. That service was recognized with the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. He also received the Legion of Merit.
Buchanan remained in the Navy through the war and retired as a rear admiral. His commands carried from the first week off Guadalcanal, when Zeilin put Marines onto Tulagi and the neighboring islets, through the Aleutians and on to the Marshalls, New Guinea, and the Marianas.