Launched at Kearny,
New Jersey, on 18 September 1936, the FANNING was commissioned on 8
October 1937. After stateside duty on both coasts, she joined Task
Force 8 and in the late fall of 1941 escorted the carrier ENTERPRISE
(CV-6) to Wake Island with a squadron of Marine Corps fighter planes.
The Task Force was returning to Pearl Harbor when it received word of
the Japanese attack and the FANNING raced to join a fruitless search
for the attackers. After refueling at Pearl Harbor on 8 December, she
returned to sea with Task Force 8 to hunt for enemy submarines. Two
days later, the carrier’s aircraft sank the I-170. On 19 December,
Task Force 8 headed for Wake Island again with reinforcements and was
just one day away from the island when it fell to the Japanese. The
task force changed course to deliver its reinforcements to Midway and
return to Pearl Harbor.
Early in January, the
FANNING was with the ENTERPRISE bound for Tutuila, Samoa. During a
blinding rainstorm on the morning of 22 January 1942, she and the
GRIDLEY (DD-380) collided. Badly damaged, both ships limped into Pago
Pago for patching up and then made their way back to Pearl Harbor
where the FANNING spent two months having her bow restored. Repairs
complete in April, she left Pearl with Task Force 16 to rendezvous
with Task Force 18 for the first American offensive against the
Japanese homeland. On the flight deck of the carrier HORNET (CV-8)
were sixteen army B-25 bombers with crews under the command of Lt.
Col. James H. Doolittle. Despite detection by Japanese patrol boats,
Doolittle’s raiders took to the skies for a successful
mission.
Routine escort duty
took her into November 1942 when she began operations in the South
Pacific with task forces centered around the carriers WASHINGTON
(CA-56) and SARATOGA (CV-3). The rest of the year was spent in convoy
and patrol duty among the Solomon Islands and in January 1943, she
screened the carriers during the landings on Guadalcanal. In February,
she supported the occupation of the Russell Islands and covered troop
landings on Munda Island where her crew rescued nine British aviators
operating with the SARATOGA. In September 1943, she helped fight off
submarine and bomber attacks on the transport convoy she was escorting
to and from Guadalcanal and then returned to California with the CASE
(DD-370), McCALL (DD-400), and CRAVEN (DD-382).
After overhaul and
operations in the Aleutians, she returned to Pearl Harbor. On 19
January 1944, she got underway with the SARATOGA’s task group bound
for the Marshall Islands where the carrier’s planes struck Wotje,
Taroa, Utirik, Rongelap, and Eniwetok. Steaming with other units of
the escort group, the FANNING shuttled between Kwajalein and Eniwetok,
making 25 strikes in 19 days in support of amphibious landings on
Eniwetok.
In April and May 1944,
the FANNING, SARATOGA, DUNLAP (DD-384), and CUMMINGS (DD-365) joined
British, Dutch, French, and Australian ships for strikes against Sabang,
Sumatra, in the Dutch East Indies and a former Dutch naval base at
Soerabaja, Java, during which she fought off several enemy air attacks.
That summer, she escorted the cruiser BALTIMORE (CA-68) with President
Roosevelt aboard to Alaska. There, on 7 August, the president
transferred to the CUMMINGS, which carried him to Bremerton escorted by
the FANNING and DUNLAP. Back in the Western Pacific in the fall, the
FANNING engaged in escort and patrol duty off Tinian and Marcus Islands
and screened carrier Task Group 38.1 as it launched strikes against
Luzon and then moved on to support the Leyte landings. When, on 24
October, the task group received word that the Japanese fleet was
converging on the Philippines, the FANNING sped to a position northwest
of the San Bernardino Strait where her crew rescued five downed aviators
during the ensuing three-day battle.
Beginning on 11
November, she was off Iwo Jima for radar picket and bombardment duty.
There, in December, her gunners set a patrol vessel on fire. During a
strike on 5 January 1945, the FANNING confronted a small freighter,
which tried vainly to ram her and raked her decks with automatic weapons
fire before a well-placed torpedo sent the enemy ship to the
bottom.
She was later called away from bombardment of Chichi Jima
when the DAVID W. TAYLOR (DD-551) was damaged by a mine and required an
escort to Ulithi. Back off Iwo on 24 January, she joined the DUNLAP in
sinking three small cargo ships. She then assumed station as radar
picket and air-sea rescue ship, operated as an escort, and engaged in
training exercises with a submarine wolf pack through 22 March. Patrol
and escort duties among the islands of Eniwetok, Iwo Jima, and Guam
occupied her through the rest of the war. During this period, her crew
rescued several pilots returning from strikes against Japan. Finally, on
19 September 1945, she headed for home. Stopping briefly at Galveston,
Texas, she steamed on to Norfolk where on 14 December 1945, she was
decommissioned. The FANNING was sold for scrap on 6 January 1948. |
