Pacific Service
Detached from this duty late in January 1945, Benson returned to the United States for yard repairs and training during February. After a convoy-escort run to Plymouth, England, in April, the destroyer received orders to the Pacific. Accordingly, she transited the Panama Canal on 12 May and reached Pearl Harbor on the 29th. The destroyer spent a bit more than a month in Hawaiian waters and then got underway on 14 June to escort aircraft carriers USS Lexington (CV-16), USS Cowpens (CVL-25) and USS Hancock (CV-19) in their air strikes against Wake Island. Then, following upkeep at Leyte in the Philippines, she proceeded to Ulithi. Until VJ day on 15 August, the warship performed convoy and patrol duty between Ulithi and Okinawa. She served in the screen for the first occupation troops for Yokohama, who landed on 2 and 3 September 1945.
In the two months following the surrender of Japan, the destroyer escorted five different convoy groups between the Philippines and Tokyo Bay. Ordered back to the United States for inactivation, Benson got underway from Yokohama on 4 November 1945 and moored at the Charleston Navy Yard, on 6 December. She was decommissioned there on 18 March 1946, placed in reserve, and assigned to the Charleston Group of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.
On 26 February 1954, Benson was transferred to the government of the Republic of China, and she served the Republic of China Navy as Lo Yang (DD-14) into the mid-1970s. As the result of a survey made of her early in 1974, the Taiwanese replaced her with another American destroyer that the Navy loaned them in 1975, the former USS Taussig (DD-746), which then became Lo Yang (DD-14). Meanwhile, Benson’s name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 November 1974; and she was sold to Taiwan, presumably for cannibalization and scrapping.
Benson (DD-421) earned four battle stars for her World War II service.
As of 2008, no other ship in the United States Navy has been named Benson.
Read more about this topic: USS Benson (DD-421)
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