USS Ward
![]() Ward in disruptive camouflage | |
Career | ![]() |
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Ordered: | |
Laid down: | 15 May 1918 |
Launched: | 1 June 1918 |
Commissioned: | 24 July 1918 |
Decommissioned: | July 1921 |
Recommissioned: | January 1941 |
Redesignated: | APD-16, February 1943 |
Fate: | Sunk in battle, 7 December 1944 |
Struck: | |
General Characteristics | |
Displacement: | 1,247 tons (1,267 t) |
Length: | 314 ft 4 in (95.81 m) |
Beam: | 30 ft 11 in (9.42 m) |
Draft: | 9 ft 10 in (3 m) |
Propulsion: | |
Speed: | 35 knots (65 km/h) |
Range: | |
Complement: | 231 officers and enlisted |
Armament: | 4 x 4"/50 cal. (102/50 mm), 2 x 3" (76 mm), 12 x 21" (533 mm) tt. |
Aircraft: | |
Motto: |
USS Ward (DD-139) was a 1247-ton (1,267 metric ton) Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War I, later APD-16 in World War II. She was the first Navy ship to engage the Japanese during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ward was named in honor of Commander James H. Ward, USN, (1806–1861), the first U.S. Navy officer to be killed in action during the American Civil War. Ward was built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, being the first ship built. Under the pressure of urgent First World War needs for destroyers, her construction was pushed rapidly from keel-laying on 15 May 1918 to launching on 1 June and commissioning on 24 July 1918.
Ward transferred to the Atlantic late in the year and helped support the trans-Atlantic flight of the NC flying boats in May 1919. She came back to the Pacific a few months later and remained there until she was decommissioned in July 1921. She had received the hull number DD-139 in July 1920.
The outbreak of World War II in Europe brought Ward back into active service. She recommissioned in January 1941. Sent to Pearl Harbor shortly thereafter, the destroyer operated on local patrol duties in Hawaiian waters over the next year. On the morning of December 7, 1941, Ward was conducting a precautionary patrol off the entrance to Pearl Harbor when she encountered a Japanese Ko-hyoteki class midget submarine, attacked and sank it, thus firing the first shots of the Pacific War a few hours before Japanese carrier aircraft formally opened the conflict with their attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet inside the harbor.
In 1942, Ward was sent to the west coast for conversion to a high speed transport. Redesignated APD-16 in February 1943, she steamed to the South Pacific to operate with U.S. forces in the Solomon Islands area. She helped fight off a heavy Japanese air attack off Tulagi on 7 April 1943 and spent most of the rest of that year on escort and transport service. In December, she participated in the Cape Gloucester invasion. During the first nine months of 1944, Ward continued her escort and patrol work and also took part in several Southwest Pacific amphibious landings, among them the assaults on Saidor, Nissan Island, Emirau, Aitape, Biak, Cape Sansapor and Morotai.
As the Pacific War moved closer to Japan, Ward was assigned to assist with operations to recover the Philippine Islands. On 17 October 1944, she put troops ashore on Dinagat Island during the opening phase of the Leyte invasion. After spending the rest of October and November escorting ships to and from Leyte, in early December, Ward transported Army personnel during the landings at Ormoc Bay, Leyte. On the morning of 7 December 1944, three years to the day after her Number Three Gun fired the opening shot of the War, she was patrolling off the invasion area when she came under attack by several Japanese aircraft. One bomber made a suicide crash into her hull amidships, bringing the ship to a stop. When the resulting fires could not be controlled, Ward's crew was ordered to abandon ship and she was sunk by gunfire from USS O'Brien (DD-725), whose Commanding Officer, William W. Outerbridge, had been in command of Ward during her action off Pearl Harbor three years before.
The 4" (102 mm)/50 caliber Number Three gun which fired the shot was removed when the destroyer was converted to a high speed transport. It was installed in 1956 as a memorial at the Capitol Building of Minnesota in St. Paul, as the men who fired it on that fateful morning were members of the Minnesota Naval Reserve. The ship's bell is now displayed in the St. Paul, Minnesota City Hall on the 3rd floor between the council and mayoral offices.
As of 2004, no other ship in the United States Navy has borne this name.
See also
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.