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USS DRAYTON was the second ship to be named for Fleet
Captain Percival Drayton, skipper of USS HARTFORD. It was to Drayton
that Admiral David Glasgow Farragut shouted the immortal command,
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" at the battle of
Mobile Bay during the Civil War.
DD-366 would be the first of the new MAHAN class to be
built by the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine. Bath also built the first
DRAYTON. The newest vessel was launched on March 26, 1936 and
commissioned the following September.
Following her shakedown cruise and acceptance trials,
she transferred to Scouting Force, Pacific fleet where one of her first
assignments was to help search for Amelia Earhart in the South Pacific.
Like the dozens of other ships utilized, she found nothing.
During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, USS
DRAYTON was screening USS LEXINGTON (CV-2) as a part of Task Force 2. As
the task force searched fruitlessly for the Japanese raiders, DRAYTON
swept the area for submarines. The enemy had disappeared.
Like many of her sisters, DRAYTON spent her career in
the Pacific, performing the great variety of duties tin cans have been
assigned for decades. In the cauldron of the South Pacific, DD-366
screened USS ENTERPRISE (CY-6) in air strikes against Bougainvillea;
softening up the island for later invasion. She supported Task Force 67
at the crucial battle of Tassafaronga.
Some of the most dramatic surface battles of the
Pacific War were fought around Guadalcanal. Repeated Japanese attempts
to reinforce their garrison on the island entered the area almost
nightly. The attempts, termed the "Tokyo Express" by the
Americans, were heavily supported by destroyers, many of which acted as
transports themselves. In all of the actions, the Imperial Japanese Navy
had the advantage, with a clear superiority both in torpedoes and the
techniques of night action.
USS DRAYTON was in the van of Task Force 67 as the
force swept up "Ironbottom Sound" west of Guadalcanal. The
target was a group of eight Japanese tin cans commanded by Rear Admiral
Raizo "Tenacious" Tanaka, intent on landing supplies. Rear
Admiral Carleton Wright's force seemed superior, but Tanaka's crews were
well drilled in night tactics and equipped with the deadly 24-inch
"Long Larice" torpedo.
The action was long and violent. DRAYTON launched her
torpedoes and followed the van around Savo Island, as ordered, to clear
the way for Wright's cruisers. In the end Tanaka succeeded in landing
the supplies, sinking USS NORTHAMPTON (CA-26), and damaging three
others. DRAYTON would spend the next several hours slowly scouring the
waters of Ironbottom Sound for the cruiser's survivors. Lt. W. N. Pope,
DRAYTON's medical officer, worked for more than thirty hours helping to
save the 128 survivors the destroyer rescued. The battle marked a
turning of the tide around the embattled island. Following the action,
named Tassafaronga for the point on the east coast of Guadalcanal where
supplies were landed, major American warships would not be used to
derail the "Tokyo Express." It would not be necessary. Motor
torpedo boats and the air forces based on the island would have the
duty. The lessons learned at Tassafaronga about effective night tactics
and coordinated torpedo attacks led directly to the resounding victories
by American destroyer forces in the Solomons.
For the remainder of the war, DRAYTON swept through
the Pacific, assigned roles as convoy escort and shore bombardment
throughout the island hopping campaigns. In one memorable action,
DRAYTON was protecting a convoy of LCM's (Landing Craft Mechanized) and
LCI's (Landing Craft Infantry) bringing reinforcements to the Leyte Gulf
invasion in the Philippines. During one twelve-hour period, she
succeeded in fighting off whole squadrons of enemy aircraft. One enemy
fighter, in a kamikaze attack, crashed one of the destroyer's 5-inch
mounts, killing six and wounding twelve. In the face of seemingly
overwhelming force, DRAYTON held out. DD-366 completed her task,
delivering her convoy unharmed to San Pedro Bay, then extinguished her
fires and sailed for the repair facilities at Manus, unaided. She would
return to the Philippine campaign.
The end of the war found DRAYTON in Manila. The
veteran destroyer was ordered to return to the United States, where she
was decommissioned in New York on October 9, 1945 and was sold for scrap
the following year.
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