USS PERKINS DD-377

A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History

USS PERKINS DD-377

The Tin Can Sailor, April 1998

USS PERKINS was the second destroyer to be named for Commodore George Hamilton Perkins, a Civil War commander whose service record included such famous naval actions as the attack on Port Hudson and the battle of Mobile Bay.

DD-377 was the second MAHAN-class destroyer to be constructed at the Puget Sound Navy Yard. The new destroyer was laid down on November 15, 1934 and launched more than a year later.

Immediately following her commissioning, on September 18, 1936, USS PERKINS was assigned to Destroyers, Scouting Force of the U.S. Fleet, then to Destroyers, Battle Force. DD-377 was undergoing an overhaul at Mare Island Navy Yard when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

PERKINS found herself in the role that many of her sisters and her class performed; she began the sometimes hazardous, sometimes boring, but always necessary role of convoy escort. She reported for service with the ANZAC squadron, charged with the task of protecting the convoy routes along the eastern coast of Australia. Her duty took her throughout the hotly contested waters of the Solomons, sometimes covering the fast carriers that would insure the victory at Guadalcanal, sometimes intercepting enemy assault forces. She would screen the carriers of Task Force 17 in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

By the summer and fall of 1942, PERKINS was drawn into the pivotal battles around Guadalcanal. For months, Japanese naval forces had attempted to reinforce their depleted garrison on Guadalcanal with a series of strongly escorted high-speed convoys that the Allied forces referred to as the “Tokyo Express.” This time, the force, led by RADM Raizo Tanaka, would be met by a prepared American Navy. RADM Carleton Wright, with less than two days’ in command of the cruiser-destroyer force assigned to stop “The Express” off Tassafaronga on Guadalcanal’s northern coast, adopted the plan he had inherited from RADM Thomas Kinkaid. The force of four heavy cruisers and a light cruiser would be led into battle by four destroyers. The tin cans were to launch their torpedoes at close range, then swing around Savo Island to unmask the enemy to the devastating firepower of the cruisers. The plan seemed a good one, but it fell apart almost immediately.

The Japanese entered Indispensable Strait Separating Guadalcanal from Savo Island and were immediately taken by surprise. The first American destroyer in the van of the attack group, USS FLETCHER (DD-445), picked up the eight Japanese destroyers that composed the resupply effort and DD-445’s skipper asked for permission to launch torpedoes. The response was delayed, then FLETCHER, followed by PERKINS and the remainder of the van, fired parting shots at the rapidly disappearing enemy. As ordered, PERKINS and the remainder of the destroyer force in the van, launched a spread of torpedoes, then rounded Savo Island to clear the area for the cruisers and two destroyers which had been picked up from transport mission at the last minute. By the time the destroyers returned to action, the battle was over.

The Battle of Tassafaronga was a disaster for the American forces. A highly effective spread of more than twenty torpedoes came from the Japanese force, sinking the cruiser NORTHAMPTON (CA-26) and badly damaging three others. Tanaka lost one destroyer.

As the battles around Guadalcanal drew to a close, PERKINS was reassigned to the Seventh Amphibious Force; she would serve the remainder of her career with “MacArthur’s Amphibious Navy.”

New Guinea was the first target in GEN Douglas MacArthur’s march toward the Philippines. The Australians had fought the Japanese to a standstill in the jungles and mountains of the uninviting island, now amphibious landings were planned along the north coast of the island to cut off supplies to the invader and isolate Japanese forces. The Japanese were not to give up their hold on the island without a fight.

Destroyers were given the main responsibility to protect the landing forces and provide fire support through the New Guinea campaign and PERKINS could be found everywhere along the embattled coast. Off the Lae beachhead, PERKINS contributed to a heavy pre-invasion bombardment that helped eight thousand American troops land against almost token resistance. Less than a month later, DD-377 was defending the Finschhafen beachhead against a submarine and swarms of enemy aircraft. Five waves of enemy aircraft plastered the destroyers off the beachhead, but liberally applied smoke screens, some fancy maneuvering, and a neat bit of deception brought the destroyer force through with minor damage. The troops ashore were safe; PERKINS and the other tin cans had done their duty nobly, although USS HENLEY (DD-391) would be lost to an undersea raider.

Following the landings at Finschhafen, PERKINS was ordered to Buna from Milne Bay. On October 29, 1943, DD-377 was steaming independently through a particularly foul South Pacific evening when disaster struck. The Australian transport HMAS DUNTROON, on a reciprocal course, had just entered the, area and was being tracked by PERKIN’s radar. Just as the ships were closing, the big transport disappeared from view in a squall. By the time the bridge crew was able to locate the vessel, DUNTROON was close aboard. The transport sliced deeply into the destroyer’s number two fire room and the veteran destroyer flooded rapidly. There was no hope. Within twenty-five minutes, PERKINS had settled, her back broken. Four Of the crew were lost; the remainder were rescued by DUNTROON.

USS PERKINS earned four battle stars for her efforts in World War II.

USS PERKINS DD-377 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, August 2015

The second Perkins (DD-377) was laid down 15 November 1934 at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Puget Sound, Wash.; launched 31 December 1935; sponsored by Mrs. Larz Anderson; and commissioned 18 September 1936, Lt. Comdr. Samuel P. Jenkins in command.

Assigned first to Destroyers, Scouting Force then to Destroyers, Battle Force, Perkins was homeported at San Diego and operated in the eastern Pacific prior to World War II. At Mare Island for overhaul, 7 December 1941, she reported for convoy escort duty on the 15th and on the 17th was enroute to Pearl Harbor. By 15 January 1942 she was back at Mare Island for the installation of new radar equipment and on the 25th she returned to Hawaii.

On 2 February she departed Pearl Harbor with Chicago, for the southwest Pacific. On the 14th she joined Australian, New Zealand and other U.S. ships in the ANZAC Squadron then charged with protecting the eastern approaches to Australia and New Zealand. Through the spring, she continued operations with that squadron, steaming at times with fast carrier forces as they plied the Coral Sea to strike at enemy encroachments, escorting refueling units to rendezvous areas, and screening larger ships of her own and combines forces as they blasted enemy positions from New Guinea to the Solomons.

On 1-2 May, the squadron joined with TF 11 and TF 17, then screened the carriers of those forces as their planes struck at Tulagi to open the Battle of the Coral Sea. Detached on the 7th, the squadron steamed to the Louisiade Archipelago to intercept a Japanese amphibious attack on Port Moresby via the Jomard Passage. That afternoon the ships were attacked by land based planes and in driving them off contributed to the diverting of the Japanese force, thus accomplishing the mission without engaging the enemy ships and setting the stage for the final action of the Battle of the Coral Sea-the carrier battle on 8 May.

As the carrier forces fought to a draw, the ANZAC squadron continued to patrol to the southeast of Papua. On the 10th the squadron headed for Australia and for almost two months Perkins escorted convoys and patrolled off harbor entrances along that country’s Coral and Tasman Sea coasts. On 11 July she sailed for Auckland, thence to Noumea. Convoy escort duty between Suva and New Caledonia followed and in mid-August she was forced back to New Zealand for propeller repairs. On the 20th, however, she sailed for Pearl Harbor where repairs were completed and additional radar equipment and 40mm. guns were installed.

In mid-November Perkins headed west again, arriving at Espiritu Santo on the 27th. Three days later she departed Segond Channel in R.Adm. Wright’s cruiser-destroyer force to intercept and destroy enemy forces attempting to reinforce their units on Guadalcanal. At 2315, 5 radar contacts were made and a few minutes later the Battle of Tassafaronga was engaged. Perkins loosed 8 torpedoes, scoring none, then turned her guns on the beach. Undamaged in the encounter she turned toward Tulagi to assist the burning Pensacola, while Maury went to assist New Orleans. Continuing operations from Tulagi, she bombarded the Guadalcanal coast and served on escort assignments until January 1943. A brief availability at Noumea followed and by the 13th she was back at Tulagi for further escort and support missions.

At the end of April Perkins joined TF 10 for tactical training and in May she returned to Australia to join the forces gathering for the thrust up the New Guinea coast to gain control of the Huon Peninsula. Into the summer the base at Milne Bay grew. At the end of June, Allied amphibious forces moved into Nassau Bay, just south of Salamaua, and into the Tobriands. Infantry units pressed toward Salamaua-Australians from Wau in the foothills of the Owen Stanley Range and Owen Stanley Range and Americans from Nassau Bay. PT boats punched at the enemy’s Finschhafen-Lae supply line and A.A.F. and R.A.A.F. planes bombed and strafed Japanese installations as far as Wewak and Madang.

On 21 August Perkins, flagship of DesRon 5, led Smith, Conyngham, and Mahan out of Milne Bay to make a sweep of Huon Gulf then bombard Finschhafen. On the night of 22-23 August they accomplished their mission and brought naval gunfire back to the New Guinea campaign after its absence through 18 months of ground fighting.

On 4 September Perkins bombarded the coast between the Bulu and Buso rivers, then covered Allied soldiers as they streamed ashore at Red Beach and headed toward Lae. On the 8th, she trained her guns on the isolated garrison at Lae and on the 15th the last remnants of that garrison pulled out. Salamaua, dependent on Lae, had already fallen and on the 16th Allied forces marched into Lae.

Finschhafen fell 2 October, the scouring of the river valleys commenced, and the increase in Allied traffic in Huon Gulf, together with the presence of Japanese submarines, brought Perkins back to escort duty. Reinforcements were escorted to Langemak Bay and to Scarlet Beach east of Satelberg. In November escort duties continued. Then, on the 28th, she departed Milne Bay for Buna, steaming independently. Shortly before 0200 on the 29th a dark image emerged from the blackness and a few minutes later the Australian troopship Duntroon rammed her on the portside, amidships. Splitting in two, Perkins went down and took four of her crew with her to a watery grave approximately 2 miles off Ipoteto island.

Perkins earned 4 battle stars during World War II.