World War II
There Mansfield joined TG 38.1 to screen and serve as picket during carrier strikes against central Luzon, including the Manila area. On 10 December 1944, Mansfield, with DesRon 61 in TG 38.2, again screened raids on Luzon. After several successful strikes, a sudden typhoon canceled further strikes and capsized destroyers Hull, Spence, and Monaghan. Mansfield's task group picked up survivors and returned to Ulithi.
On 30 December, Mansfield joined TG 30.1 for airstrikes against Formosa and central Luzon. Afterwards, Admiral William Halsey took the 3rd Fleet, with TG 30.1, through the Bashi Strait into the South China Sea, up to then a private lake of the Japanese Navy. However, no Japanese units challenged Halsey's fleet during its 3,800 mile foray along the China coast from Hong Kong to Saigon. From 10 to 20 January 1945, 3rd Fleet aircraft battered enemy facilities and merchant ships and destroyed 112 Japanese planes.
In early February 1945, Mansfield screened in TG 58.1 as carriers flew strikes against targets in the Tokyo industrial area. On 15 February Mansfield helped Bush splash an enemy fighter closing the formation. From 17 to 23 February, TG 58.1 lent fighter support for the Iwo Jima assault, then steamed at full speed back to the Tokyo area for bombing runs on Nagoya and Kobe. As heavy weather set in, the task group retired southward, pounding enemy shore installations on Okinawa while en route to Ulithi for replenishment.
From 14 March to 27 April 1945, Mansfield screened carriers during strikes against southern Kyushu, followed by sweeps against Okinawa Gunto. On 9 May 1945, her flattops again pounded Kyushu, Okinawa, and the island groups between. From 28 May, when the 5th Fleet again became the 3rd Fleet and TG 58.1 became TG 38.1, to the Japanese surrender 15 August, the destroyer operated off the Japanese homeland. Three weeks before VJ Day, Mansfield, with eight destroyers of DesRon 61, conducted a daring high‑speed torpedo run into Nojima Saki, sinking or damaging four enemy ships.
After witnessing the formal Japanese surrender ceremony (alongside the USS Missouri) in September in Tokyo Bay, Mansfield returned to the West Coast. During the postwar years, the combat veterans trained reservists from the West Coast and made annual cruises to WestPac as part of the Destroyer Force, Pacific Fleet.
Read more about this topic: USS Mansfield (DD-728)
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“Today we know that World War II began not in 1939 or 1941 but in the 1920’s and 1930’s when those who should have known better persuaded themselves that they were not their brother’s keeper.”
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