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The contract to build the class leader of the
newly-designed FARRAGUTs was awarded to Bethlehem Steel's Quincy (MA)
shipyard and USS FARRAGUT (DD 348) was launched on March 15, 1934, sponsored
by the President's daughter- in-law, Mrs. James Roosevelt.
DD-348 was the third naval vessel to bear the
name of the famous Civil War Admiral, David Glasgow Farragut, whose historic
order, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" conveyed the destroyer philosophy
so well.
FARRAGUT was commissioned three months after her
launching, and immediately became the showpiece of the Atlantic destroyer force
as the newest destroyer available. She was often visited by foreign dignitaries
and twice conveyed President Franklin D. Roosevelt on his many cruises in the
Caribbean area.
The destroyer's assignment to the Pacific in the
spring of 1935 marked the beginning of a long career with the Pacific fleet. A
variety of maneuvers busied destroyers in the pre-War period, the FARRAGUT
served as DesRon 20's flagship during training cruises both in the Aleutians and
in the Caribbean. By 1941, DD-348 was almost constantly at sea, honing her
skills as a screen for America's meager carrier force.
On December 7, 1941, FARRAGUT was moored in East
Loch, Pearl Harbor. Her engineering officer, the senior officer aboard at the
time of the attack, succeeded in getting underway. Attacked by more than a dozen
raiders, she successfully fought all off, while receiving slight damage from a
strafing attack.
FARRAGUT served with distinction in a litany of
battle throughout the Pacific. In 1942, she supported carrier forces in the
momentous battle of the Coral Sea, she screened forces landing at Guadalcanal,
and defended carrier strikes into the Eastern Solomons. She transited to Kiska
and Attu in the Aleutian chain in 1943, where her accurate gunfire supported
troops establishing a foothold in the western Alaskan archipelago.
By mid-year, the much-traveled tin can was back
in the central Pacific, this time to guard carriers softening up Tarawa,
Kwajalein and Eniwetok. Then, it was back to the South Pacific for engagements
in the Hollandia area.
FARRAGUT returned to the central Pacific in 1944,
where she served off Saipan and Guam, again adding her gunfire support to the
invasion of one atoll after another. As a radar picket, she helped to locate
enemy forces in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. She was seen off the beach in
Guam, supporting demolition teams in preparation for the invasion; her accurate
gunfire smashed Rota later in July.
After an all-too-brief overhaul at the Puget
Sound Navy Yard, she returned to the conflict, serving as a screen for the
oilers replenishing the fast carrier task forces operating in the Western
Pacific. She even served her turn on the radar picket line off Okinawa in the
closing weeks of the war. FARRAGUT was finally rotated home by the end of August
1945 and arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on September 25, 1945. She was
decommissioned in October 1945, and sold for scrapping on August 14, 1947,
having earned fourteen battle stars for her service in World War II.
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