|
The fifth MAHAN-class destroyer to be laid down was also
the first to be assigned to the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company
at Kearny, New Jersey. The vessel was to be named FLUSSER and would be
the fourth to bear the name of Lieutenant Commander Charles Williamson
Flusser, who lost his life in an attempt to capture the Confederate
Ironclad Ram CSS ALBEMARLE during the Civil War.
DD-368 would be launched on September 28, 1935 and
commissioned almost exactly one year later.
FLUSSER's shakedown cruise included operations with
squadron 40-T, a naval force created to insure American interests in the
Western Mediterranean were protected during the Spanish Civil War. Upon
her return to American waters, she cruised the East Coast before her
final assignment to the Pacific fleet, based first in San Francisco,
then at Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese attack on the Hawaiian naval base found
FLUSSER far at sea, screening USS LEXINGTON (CV-2). The task force
immediately sped in pursuit of the retreating Imperial Japanese forces,
but the attackers were well out of the area. FLUSSER returned to the
devastated base on December 12. Vital convoy duty between the Hawaiian
archipelago and the South Pacific consumed eight months of FLUSSER's
service.
As Allied forces secured Guadalcanal and began the
march northward through the Solomons and Gilberts, FLUSSER was called
upon to provide direct support to the invasion forces. DD-368 would
provide accurate fire support for the landings at Lae and Finschhafen
where she also sank three barges laden with Japanese reinforcements. The
destroyer alternated between much-needed overhauls and extensive
steaming in the waters north of Australia, protecting vital convoys and
blasting away at Japanese shore batteries. The actions were not always
one-sided; at Wotje, a Japanese shore battery hit the destroyer,
wounding nine men.
The Philippines campaign presented FLUSSER with one of
her greatest challenges. Many of Japan's most prominent military leaders
began to understand that only the most drastic of means would halt the
Allied drive to Japan. They concluded that massive air assaults,
featuring suicidal kamikaze attacks, held the only hope. FLUSSER would
enter the conflict around the Western Pacific islands as the first
organized kamikaze attacks were mounted. Escorting reinforcements
between Hollandia and Leyte, FLUSSER received her first suicide
attacker, a near miss. On the following day, a large group attacked
FLUSSER's group and the destroyer splashed a number of attackers, before
rescuing survivors from LSM-20. Ormoc Bay seemed to be a kamikaze
magnet, and FLUSSER found herself in the middle of a blizzard of
attackers. She splashed at least one, then provided cover for the
stricken USS LAMSON (DD-367).
The end of the war in the Pacific found FLUSSER
operating in the waters around the Philippines. She would subsequently
be assigned to occupation duty at Sasebo, Japan, where her officers were
given the task of inspecting Japanese naval and merchant shipping in the
area. She would return to San Diego in November, 1945.
DD-368 would take part in "Operation
Crossroads" the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb "experiments" of
1946. Ultimately, the veteran destroyer would return to Norfolk, VA
where she would be decommissioned in December 1946, and sold on January
6, 1948.
USS FLUSSER earned eight battle stars for her actions
in World War II.
|
