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USS CHARLES F. HUGHES would be the first BENSON-class
destroyer to be built at a West Coast Navy yard. She was launched at the
Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington, on May 16, 1940 and
commissioned four months later.
The new destroyer was named for Charles Frederick
Hughes. ADM Hughes would serve in the U.S. Navy for forty-six years. His
outstanding service in command of USS NEW YORK (BB-34) while on
assignment with the British Grand Fleet won him a Distinguished Service
Medal. ADM Hughes would complete his career as Chief of Naval Operations
from 1927 to 1930.
DD-428 transited the Panama Canal soon after
commissioning and participated in Caribbean training and fleet
operations. Reporting to Newport, Rhode Island, on April 3,1941, USS
CHARLES F. HUGHES was immediately assigned to escort service in the
western Atlantic. She was frequently called upon to rescue survivors of
merchantmen torpedoed by marauding U-boats.
When war was finally declared in December, 1941,
DD-428's area of operations expanded to convoys along the East Coast, in
the Caribbean, and to the mid-ocean meeting point in the North Atlantic,
where escorts from the British Isles turned their charges over to fresh
destroyers from the West. By May, the destroyer completed her first
"full" passage, conducting her charges to Belfast, Northern
Ireland. During the spring of 1942, DD-428 was pressed into service in
protecting troop convoys being funneled into the North African landings,
but her destiny seemed drawn to Atlantic escort work, and she reverted
to her usual role for much of the rest of the year. The destroyer was
instrumental in protecting tanker traffic in the central Atlantic as
well, participating in the epic baffle with a large wolf pack off the
Azores while protecting convoy UC-1. Although the escorts were pressed
repeatedly, DD-428 and other destroyers kept losses to a single tanker
and prompted the British escort commander to commend the Americans on
their effective anti-submarine tactics.
On January 4, 1944, USS CHARLES F. HUGHES left
Norfolk, Virginia, for assignment with the 8th Fleet in the
Mediterranean. Invasions were planned for both Italy and southern France
where the destroyer's expertise would be useful. Initially, she escorted
coastal convoys before being based in Naples, Italy, where she would be
close to the Anzio beachhead should her services be needed. They were.
With a brief respite to provide security for an
important convoy to Gibraltar, DD- 428 would patrol off Anzio until May,
providing vital fire support to the troops ashore. More than one strong
German counter-attack was broken up by the accurate fire of the
destroyer. She would be reassigned in May, just before the successful
breakout of the beachhead freed her for service elsewhere.
Operation ANVIL was the plan to invade southern
France. It was intended to help relieve pressure from the Allied Troops
now engaged in northern France. By all accounts, the invasion was
textbook perfect, in large part due to the efforts of destroyers like
USS CHARLES F. HUGHES. Between fire support missions and convoy duties,
DD-428 helped provide security to the eastern flank of the landing area.
The task provided a number of challenges.
On the evening of August 19-20, 1944, the destroyer
spotted three German E-boats, the Nazi equivalent of the American PT
(patrol torpedo vessels). Accompanied by three other destroyers, DD-428
sped after the small craft, sinking one and forcing the other two
aground in shallow coastal waters. The destroyer would spend much of the
remaining months of 1944 in gunfire support roles off Monaco and in
conveying reinforcements to the successful invasion.
Like her sisters in the Mediterranean, USS CHARLES F.
HUGHES was ordered to the States at the beginning of 1945 for refit and
training in preparation for the final assault on Japan. She would reach
New York in January and, aside from a single convoy assignment back to
the Mediterranean, was able to leave for the Pacific by early summer.
She would spend the remaining months of the war escorting convoys to
Okinawa. With the Japanese surrender, she convoyed troops between the
Philippines and the Japanese islands.
USS CHARLES F. HUGHES returned to the United States
and was placed out of commission and in reserve at Charleston South
Carolina on March 18, 1946. The destroyer was stricken from the Navy
List in 1968 and expended as a target.
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