Remembering Pearl Harbor 83 Years Later

Hull Number: DD-419

Launch Date: 06/01/1939

Commissioned Date: 04/15/1940

Decommissioned Date: 08/26/1946

Call Sign: NCEN


Class: SIMS

SIMS Class

Data for USS Hughes (DD-410) as of 1945


Length Overall: 348' 4"

Beam: 36' 0

Draft: 13' 4"

Standard Displacement: 1,570 tons

Full Load Displacement: 2,465 tons

Fuel capacity: 2,929 barrels

Armament:

Four 5″/38 caliber guns
Two 40mm twin anti-aircraft mounts
Two 21″ quadruple torpedo tubes

Complement:

16 Officers
235 Enlisted

Propulsion:

3 Boilers
2 Westinghouse Turbines: 50,000 horsepower

Highest speed on trials: 38.7 knots

Namesake: CDR. JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT, MASTER JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT, JR., CDR. RICHARD WAINWRIGHT, AND RADM. RICHARD WAINWRIGHT

CDR. JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT, MASTER JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT, JR., CDR. RICHARD WAINWRIGHT, AND RADM. RICHARD WAINWRIGHT

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, October 2015

Comdr. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, born in New York City on 27 July 1821, was initially commissioned in the United States Navy on 30 June 1837 and served with distinction in the Civil War. Wainwright commanded Harriet Lane, Admiral David Dixon Porter’s flagship, in an engagement with Forts Jackson and St. Philip and took part in operations below Vicksburg. He was killed in an attack upon Confederate forts in Galveston Harbor on 1 January 1863.

Master Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, Jr., son of Commander Wainwright, was born in New York City on 29 January 1849 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1867. He was promoted to master on 21 March 1870, while attached to Mohican in the Pacific Squadron. Shortly thereafter, Wainwright was wounded during a boat expedition under his command against the piratical steamer, Forward, lying-to in a lagoon at San Bias, Mexico. Succumbing to the effect of his wounds, he died on board Mohican on 19 June 1870.

Comdr. Richard Wainwright, a cousin of Comdr. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, was born in Charlestown, Mass., in 1817 and was commissioned in the United States Navy on 11 May 1831. Between 1841 and 1857, Wainwright served in the Coast Survey and on the Navy’s Home Station. He cruised in Merrimack on special service from 1857 to 1860. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Wainwright commanded Hartford, flagship of Admiral David G. Farragut’s West Gulf Blockading Squadron. During the passage of forts below New Orleans on the night of 24 and 25 April 1861, he performed gallant service in extinguishing a fire on Hartford while continuing the bombardment of the forts. Commended by Admiral Farragut for his actions, Wainwright later participated in the squadron’s operations below Vicksburg until taken ill with fever. He died in New Orleans on 10 August 1862.

Rear Admiral Richard Wainwright, son of Comdr. Richard Wainwright, was born on 17 December 1849 in Washington, D.C. Initially commissioned in the United States Navy on 28 September 1864, Wainwright was executive officer on board the battleship Maine when she blew up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, on 15February 1898. Surviving the explosion, he was assigned to command of the tender Fern and was in charge of the recovery of the bodies of the victims. He also assisted in the collection of information for the subsequent court of inquiry. Wainwright later commanded the wooden gunboat Gloucester at the battle of Santiago on 3 July 1898. In this engagement, Gloucester sank one Spanish torpedo boat and drove another on the beach. Wainwright was commended for his valor in this engagement. Later, promoted to rear admiral, he commanded the Second Division of the United States Atlantic Fleet during that fleet’s historic voyage around the world from 1907 to 1909. Retired from active duty on 7 December 1911, Admiral Wainwright died in Washington, D.C., on 6 March 1926.

Wainwright (DD-419) honored these four Wainwrights.


Disposition:

Used as target in Atomic Bomb Tests at Bikini Atoll in 07/1946. Sunk off of Kwajalein Atoll on 07/05/1948.


A Tin Can Sailors Destroyer History

USS WAINWRIGHT DD-419

Tin Can Sailor, April 2000

The destroyer designated DD-419 was the second WAINWRIGHT. She was named in honor of four generations of Wainwrights beginning with Civil War admiral Jonathan M. Wainwright. She was launched on 1 June 1939 and commissioned on 15 April 1940.

The WAINWRIGHT’s first duty was on Neutrality Patrol in the Atlantic. On 10 November 1941, she left Nova Scotia with the destroyers MOFFETT (DD-362), MCDOUGAL(DD-358), WINSLOW (DD-359), MAYRANT (DD-402), RHIND (DD-404), ROWAN (DD-405), and TRIPPE (DD-403) to screen Convoy WS-124, transporting British troops to the Near East. When they reached Capetown, South Africa, and turned the convoy over to the British, it was two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The American destroyers returned to the U.S. as full-fledged belligerents.

Operating in the North Atlantic, the WAINWRIGHT joined a special Allied Support Force on 1 July 1942. Including the U.S. destroyer ROWAN and six British destroyers, the force was assigned to escort Convoy PQ-17 from Iceland to Archangel. U-boat and torpedo bomber attacks began on the 2nd but were turned back by the escorts. Attacks on 3 July were similarly unsuccessful, but on 4 July, a torpedo plane sank the liberty ship CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT. A second and then a third wave of bombers claimed two more merchant ships, but before they could cause more damage, the attackers ran into an antiaircraft barrage from the WAINWRIGHT. Determined to take out the sharpshooting destroyer, the Germans returned. Her skipper’s skillful maneuvering saved the WAINWRIGHT to face the next attack on the convoy. She took some heavy strafing, but her crew suffered no injuries as her gunners deflected a dozen dive bombers closing on the convoy’s starboard bow. Meanwhile, the British Admiralty was under the mistaken belief that a fleet of German warships was on its way to attack the convoy and ordered the Support Force to withdraw and the merchant ships to scatter and proceed on their own. Without the WAINWRIGHT, ROWAN, and other escorts, only eleven of the convoy’s thirty-three ships arrived in Archangel on 25 July.

The WAINWRIGHT’s saw action again during the invasion of French Morocco in November 1942. The WAINWRIGHT was off Casablanca early on 8 November when her antiaircraft gunners and those of the MAYRANT, RHIND, and JENKINS (DD-447)  repelled two Vichy French planes. Later, her gunners joined in sinking four Vichy destroyers and eight submarines and crippling a cruiser and two other destroyers. At the same time, the WAINWRIGHT kept up a gun duel with batteries ashore. She remained off the Moroccan coast supporting the invasion that resulted in the French surrender on 12 November.

Following an overhaul, the WAINWRIGHT resumed her escort duty. In March 1943, she led the group escorting Convoy UGS-6. The group included the destroyers TRIPPE, CHAMPLIN (DD-601), MAYRANT, ROWAN, RHIND, and HOBBY (DD-610). On 7 March, despite the WAINWRIGHT’s efforts to divert it, a Norwegian freighter collided with one of the convoy vessels and sank. The damaged ship had to be left behind with another merchantman to assist her. All was quiet again until 12 March when the CHAMPLIN’s radar detected an enemy submarine, which she hunted down and sank with depth charges. In the meantime, a wolfpack was stalking the convoy, claiming a merchantman on 13 March. By sunset of the 17th, the U-boats had sunk three more of the forty-four remaining ships in the convoy, but with only six lives lost. Continuous air cover eliminated the U-boat threat for the rest of the voyage.

The WAINWRIGHT continued convoy duty along the coast of North Africa until the July invasion of Sicily. She was patrolling off Palermo with the MAYRANT, ROWAN, and RHIND on 26 July when German bombers attacked the group. The MAYRANT was hit and the WAINWRIGHT joined in escorting the ship to port. She continued to support operations in northern Sicily and then took part in the Messina campaign. On 5 September, she resumed convoy duty between North Africa and Sicily and in late October, bombarded enemy installations around Naples.

With the NIBLACK (DD-424), BENSON (DD-421), and HMS CALPE north of Algiers on 13 December 1943, the WAINWRIGHT made contact with the U-593. First the WAINWRIGHT and then the CALPE attacked with depth charges, which brought the submarine to the surface. The WAINWRIGHT’s gun crews opened fire and in less than two minutes, the German crew abandoned the boat. Her boarding party rescued survivors and with the CALPE, delivered their prisoners to British authorities in Algiers.

Early in 1944, she helped cover the landings at Anzio and Nettuno. Finally, in early February, she headed for home and in April 1945 was headed for the Pacific. She was en route to the Aleutians when the war with Japan ended. She served with the occupation forces and then returned to San Diego. Her final service was as a target ship for the atomic tests at Bikini in July 1946. She was decommissioned at Bikini on 29 August 1946, was sunk as a target on 5 July 1948, and was struck from the navy’s list on 13 July 1948.

USS WAINWRIGHT DD-419 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, October 2015

The second Wainwright (DD-419) was laid down on 7 June 1938 at the Norfolk Navy Yard; launched on 1 June 1939; sponsored by Mrs. Henry Meiggs; and commissioned on 15 April 1940, Lt. Comdr. Thomas L. Lewis in command.

Following shakedown, Wainwright began duty with the Atlantic Fleet in conjunction with the Neutrality Patrol which had been established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt soon after World War II broke out in Europe early in September of 1939 to keep hostilities from spreading to the Western Hemisphere. Just before the opening of hostilities between Japan and the United States, Wainwright embarked upon a mission which indicated an acceleration in America’s gradual drift into the Allied camp. She departed Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 10 November, as a unit of the screen for Convoy WS-12X, an all-American ship convoy transporting British and Commonwealth troops via the Cape of Good Hope to Basra in the Near East. The convoy steamed first to Trinidad in the British West Indies, in order that the “short-legged” destroyers might refuel there before beginning the long South Atlantic leg of the voyage to Capetown. There, the convoy was to be turned over to the British Admiralty for orders and protection, and the destroyers were to turn around and head home.

The convoy reached Capetown on 9 December 1941, two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and two days before Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. This change in the strategic picture caused changes in the destinations of the transports. Some went to Suez and thence to Australia while other carried reinforcements to the doomed “fortress” of Singapore. The escorting American destroyers headed back to the United States, but this time they put to sea as full-fledged belligerents.

Upon her return to the east coast, Wainwright resumed her patrols. Her assignment, however, took on a new complexion. No longer simply trying to prevent the spread of hostilities to the Western Hemisphere, she patrolled instead to protect America’s shorelines and sea-going traffic along her coast from Germany’s undersea fleet. That duty continued until mid-March 1942, when the warship received orders to join the British Home Fleet as part of an American force composed of Wasp (CV-7), North Carolina (BB-55), Washington (BB-56), Tuscaloosa (CA-37), Wichita (CA-45), and seven other destroyers. On 25 March, she departed Casco Bay, Maine, in company with Wasp, Washington, Wichita, Tuscaloosa and the destroyers of Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 8 with ComDesRon 8 embarked. The task unit reached Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands north of the British Isles, on 3 April.

Until the fall of 1942, Wainwright participated in convoy operations between Iceland, the Orkneys, and northern Russia. During this period, she had frequent brushes with Luftwaffe planes and Kriegsmarine submarines. Her most famous and most successful encounter with the enemy came three months after she arrived in European waters while the destroyer was protecting the North Russia convoys. She was then part of the covering force for the ill-fated Convoy PQ-17, making the run from Iceland to Archangel. The force, built around HMS London, Tuscaloosa, Wichita, and HMS Norfolk, with Wainwright, Rowan (DD-405), and seven British destroyers in the screen, departed Seidisfjord, Iceland, on 1 July.

PQ-17 suffered Luftwaffe and submarine attacks on 2 and 3 July, but Wainwright did not get involved directly until the 4th. In mid-afternoon, the destroyer joined the convoy to refuel from the tanker Aldersdale. On her way to the rendezvous, the warship assisted the convoy in repulsing two torpedo-plane raids. During the first, her long-range fire kept the six enemy planes at a distance sufficient to make their torpedo drops wholly inaccurate. The second was a desultory, single-plane affair in which the warship easily drove off the lone torpedo bomber. During the ensuing dive-bombing attack, she evaded the enemy handily, the nearest bomb landing at least 150 yards away.

After that attack, a two-hour lull in the action allowed Wainwright to resume her original mission, refueling, but the enemy returned at about 1820. At the sight of 25 Heinkel 111’s, each carrying two torpedoes, milling about on the southern horizon, the warship turned to port to clear the convoy. At that juncture, the Heinkels divided themselves into two groups for the attack, one on her starboard quarter and the other on her starboard bow. Wainwright took the group off her quarter under fire at extreme range, about 10,000 yards distant, and maintained her fire until it endangered the convoy. At that juncture, she shifted her attention to the more dangerous bow attack. Her fire on that group proved so effective that only one plane managed to penetrate her defenses to make his drop between Wainwright and the convoy. All the others prudently dropped their torpedoes about 1,000 to 1,500 yards from the destroyer. That resulted in a torpedo run to the convoy itself in excess of 4,000 yards. The ships in the convoy easily evaded the torpedoes approaching from the bow, but the torpedoes coming from the starboard quarter found their marks, liberty ship SS William Hooper and the Russian tanker SS Azerbaidjan. Wainwright, though, had put up a successful defense. Her antiaircraft gunners damaged three or four enemy planes and generally discouraged the raiders from pressing home their attack with the vigor necessary for greater success.

Not long after that attack, at about 1900, Wainwright parted company with convoy PQ-17 to rejoin her own task unit, then heading off to meet the supposed threat posed by the possible sortie of a German surface force built around battleship Tirpitz, pocket battleship Scheer, and cruiser Hipper. Convoy PQ-17, naked to the enemy after the Support Force withdrew to meet a danger which never materialized, scattered. Each ship tried to make it to northern Russia as best she could. Luftwaffe planes and Kriegsmarine submarines saw that few succeeded. After more than three weeks of individual hide-and-seek games with the Germans, the last groups of PQ-17 ships straggled into Archangel on 25 July. Operation “Rosselsprung” as the Germans dubbed the action, had proved an overwhelming success. It cost the Allies over two-thirds of the ships in PQ-17. However, Wainwright’s brief association with the convoy probably saved several others from being added to the casualty list.

Wainwright continued to escort Atlantic convoys through the summer and into the fall of 1942. However, no action like that she encountered on 4 July occurred. It was not until the first large-scale amphibious operation of the European-African-Middle Eastern theater came along in November that she again engaged the enemy in deadly earnest.

For the invasion of French Morocco, Wainwright was assigned to the four-destroyer screen of the Covering Group (Task Group 34.1) built around Massachusetts (BB-59), Tuscaloosa (CA-37), and Wichita (CA-45). Assembled at Casco Bay, Maine, that group got underway on 24 October and, two days later, rendezvoused with the remainder of the Western Naval Task Force (Task Force 34) which had sortied from Hampton Roads. The task force reached the Moroccan coast on the night of 7 and 8 November. The invasion was scheduled for the pre-dawn hours of the following morning. The Covering Force drew the two-fold mission of protecting the transports in the event of a sortie by French heavy surface units based at Dakar and of preventing a sortie by the French light forces based at Casablanca.

For Wainwright, the action off Casablanca opened just before 0700 on the 8th when her antiaircraft gunners joined those of the other ships of the Covering Force in chasing away two Vichy French planes. Later that morning, Casablanca-based submarines, destroyers, and the light cruiser Primauguet sallied forth to oppose the landings, already in progress at Fedhala. Wainwright joined Massachusetts, Tuscaloosa, Wichita and the other three destroyers in stopping that attack. Their efforts cost the French heavily. Four Vichy destroyers and eight submarines were sunk while the light cruiser and two destroyer-leaders suffered crippling damage. In addition to her part in the engagement with the French warships, Wainwright also participated in the intermittent gun duels with batteries ashore.

For the next three days, Wainwright remained off the Moroccan coast supporting the invasion. The Army invested Casablanca by the night of the 10th, and the French capitulated late the following morning. On the 12th, the Covering Force, with Wainwright in the screen, sailed for home. The destroyer arrived in New York on 21 November and immediately began a two-week repair period.

Next, after a brief training period, the warship resumed duty with transatlantic convoys. For the next six months, she busied herself protecting merchant ships making the voyage to North African ports. During her stay in Casablanca after one such voyage, she played host to a group of Moroccan dignitaries including SidiMohammed, the Sultan of Morocco. During another convoy operation, she helped screen Convoy UGS-6 which lost five of its 45 ships to U-boat torpedoes. When not engaged in Atlantic convoy duty, she trained with other ships of the Atlantic Fleet and underwent brief repairs in various American ports.

In June of 1943, Wainwright returned to North Africa for convoy duty between ports along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa which occupied her until the invasion of Sicily in July. For that operation, Wainwright was assigned to TG 80.2, the Escort Group. The force arrived off the Sicilian coast on the night of 9 and 10 July, and the assault troops went ashore the following morning. During the campaign, Wainwright protected the transports from enemy air and submarine activity. While she was patrolling off Palermo on 26 July, a formation of twin-engine Ju. 88 medium bombers attacked her group. Two near misses flooded both main engine rooms in sister-destroyer Mayrant (DD-402), and Wainwright joined in escorting the stricken warship into port under tow. Later, she supported the “leap-frog” amphibious moves employed by Major General George S. Patton in his rampage across northern Sicily to the Strait of Messina. During her stay in Sicilian waters, the destroyer also supported mine-sweeping operations and conducted antishipping sweeps. In mid-August, she returned to North Africa at Mersel-Kebir, Algeria, where she remained until early September. On the 5th, she resumed convoy duty, this time between North Africa and Sicily, frequently warding off Luftwaffe air raids. Italy proper had been invaded early in September; and, late in October, the warship was called upon to bombard enemy installations around Naples in support of the 5th Army’s advance on that city.

She resumed convoy duty soon thereafter. Her next noteworthy contact with the enemy came on 13 December. While conducting an antisubmarine sweep 10 miles north of Algiers in company with Niblack (DD-424), Benson (DD-421), and HMS Calpe, she made contact with U-593. First Wainwright and then HMS Calpe attacked with depth charges. Those attacks brought the submarine to the surface, and Wainwright’s gun crews went to work on her. In less than two minutes, the German crew began to abandon their vessel. Wainwright responded with a boarding party. The American Sailors rescued survivors but failed to save the U-boat. After returning to Algiers and delivering her prisoners to British authorities there, she resumed convoy and patrol duties in North African waters. At the beginning of 1944, she provided support for the troops trying to break out of the beachheads at Anzio and Nettuno on the Italian mainland. Those duties occupied her until early February when she received orders to return to the United States. She steamed homeward in company with Ariel (AF-22) and Niblack via Ponta Delgada in the Azores, arrived at New York on 12 February, and entered the navy yard there for a three-week overhaul. When that chore was finished on 6 March, the destroyer began 13 months of escort and training duty along the eastern seaboard.

That routine ended on 27 April 1945 when she passed through the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean. After a stop at San Diego and exercises out of Pearl Harbor, the warship headed for the western Pacific. She reached Ulithi Atoll on 13 June and for the next two months sailed between various islands in the area. She visited Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Saipan, Guam, and Eniwetok. On 12 August, she departed the last-named atoll in company with TF 49 bound for the Aleutian Islands. While she was at sea, the Japanese capitulation ended hostilities. Four days later, the ship steamed into Adak. She remained there until the last day of the month when she got underway with TF 92, bound for Honshu, Japan. Wainwright arrived in Ominato Ko on 12 September and began a six-week tour of duty in support of the occupation forces. That duty ended on 30 October, and the warship headed back toward the United States.

After stops at Midway and Pearl Harbor, she pulled into San Diego on 16 December.

Wainwright remained at San Diego in an inactive status until the spring of 1946. At that time, she was designated a target ship for the atomic tests to be conducted at Bikini Atoll that summer. She survived both blasts at Bikini in July. On 29 August 1946, she was decommissioned. Wainwright remained at Bikini almost two years under intermittent inspection by scientists evaluating the effects of the Operation “Crossroads” tests. Finally, she was towed out to sea in July 1948 and sunk as a target on the 5th. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 13 July 1948.

Wainwright (DD-419) earned seven battle stars for World War II service.