Service History
Following her shakedown out of Casco Bay, Maine and post-shakedown availability at the New York Navy Yard, Aaron Ward sailed for the Pacific on 20 May 1942 and proceeded via the Panama Canal to San Diego. A short time later, as the Battle of Midway was developing off to the westward, the destroyer operated in the screen of Vice Admiral William S. Pye's Task Force 1 (TF 1), built around four battleships and an escort carrier Long Island as it steamed out into the Pacific Ocean — eventually reaching a point some 1,200 miles (2,200 km) west of San Francisco, California and equally northeast of Hawaii — to "support the current operations against the enemy." With the detachment of Long Island from the task force on 17 June, Aaron Ward screened her on her voyage back to San Diego.
Read more about this topic: USS Aaron Ward (DD-483)
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