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Built by the United Shipyard of New York,
the DUNLAP (DD-384) was launched on 18 April 1936. She was commissioned
on 12 June 1937 and was operating out of Pearl Harbor when the Japanese
attacked on 7 December 1941.
On 1
February 1942 she was off Wotje Atoll in the Marshall Islands when she
spotted an enemy gunboat and quickly sent it to the bottom. An hour
later, her gunfire ran a second gunboat aground and in short order
beached an enemy auxiliary and left two hangars and a row of buildings
ashore in flames as she laid a screen of smoke and retired. On the way,
she rescued a pilot and radioman from a downed plane. By year’s end she
was operating out of Noumea, New Caledonia, and spent the first half of
1943 in exercises and on escort duty in the South Pacific.
On 27 July 1943 the DUNLAP got underway
to escort transports to Guadalcanal and on 1 August escorted two LSTs
and a sub-chaser to Rendova Island. Five days later she and five other
destroyers were dispatched to Vella Gulf to intercept a Japanese cruiser
and three destroyers. The Americans split into two groups, one
consisting of the DUNLAP, CRAVEN (DD-382), and MAURY (DD-401) and the
other, the LANG (DD-399), STERRETT (DD-407), and STACK (DD-406). The
DUNLAP’s group attacked first with torpedoes, and as the torpedoes
struck home, the second group opened fire. Group one also brought their
guns to bear and when the destroyers ceased firing, the entire enemy
force had been sunk.
On 9 August 1943 in the Gizo Strait, the
DUNLAP and GRIDLEY (DD-380) sank one enemy barge and damaged another.
Four days later, while on patrol off Guadalcanal, the DUNLAP and JOHN
PENN (AP-51) came under heavy air attack during which an enemy torpedo
sank the PENN. Following a return to the West Coast and operations in
the Aleutian Islands, she was on her way back to the Western Pacific in
December. In January and February 1944 she screened carriers during
strikes against Wotje, Taroa, and Eniwetok.
While steaming with the SARATOGA (CV-3)
in March, three of the DUNLAP’s crew went into the water to rescue three
survivors of a downed plane from the carrier. Later in the month the
DUNLAP began operations with the British Eastern Fleet out of Colombo,
Ceylon.
In May two British Barracudas collided in
mid-air, and the DUNLAP and CUMMINGS (DD-365) rushed to the scene where
only two of three crash victims they pulled from the water survived. In
July 1944 the destroyer escorted the BALTIMORE (CA-68) and later the
CUMMINGS, which carried President Roosevelt on a fishing trip to Auk
Bay, Alaska.
By September she was back in the war
firing on coastal defense guns and other targets on Wake Island. On 9
October 1944, as a massive U.S. force assembled for a return to the
Philippines, the DUNLAP was with Task Group 30.2 headed for Marcus
Island to create a diversion. In her group were three cruisers and the
FANNING (DD-385), CASE (DD-370), CUMMINGS, CASSIN (DD-372), and DOWNES
(DD-375).
When their ruse was successfully
completed, the task group got underway to rendezvous with units of the
Third Fleet for strikes against Luzon and to support MacArthur’s
landings at Leyte on the 20th. Five days later she screened Task Group
38.1 as its carrier planes attacked enemy ships fleeing from their
defeat at the Battle for Leyte Gulf and rescued three American airmen.
At 2351 on 11 November the DUNLAP began
her first bombardment mission against Iwo Jima hitting enemy aircraft
installations and airfields and ships in the boat basin before retiring.
She returned to bombard Iwo in December when she sank one LST, badly
damaged another, caused the beaching of a freighter, and silenced
several shore batteries.
In January 1945 during strikes against
Iwo, the DUNLAP and CUMMINGS assisted the FANNING in sinking an enemy
ship, and later that month she destroyed several enemy freighters.
Beginning in March she patrolled off Iwo during its occupation and
downed an enemy plane on 21 May. On 19 June she sank three enemy vessels
attempting to evacuate Chichi Jima and picked up fifty-two survivors.
The end of hostilities brought Japanese officers to the deck of the
DUNLAP for the surrender of the Bonin Islands on 3 September 1945. By
the end of the month she was headed for home, arriving finally in
Norfolk where she was decommissioned on 14 December 1945. She was sold
for scrap on 31 December 1947. |
