Pearl Harbor
Following an extensive shakedown cruise to Europe and western South America, Macdonough joined the Pacific Fleet and operated out of San Diego, California until 12 October 1939. She then shifted to a new home port, Pearl Harbor, as part of Destroyer Squadron 1. In port 7 December 1941 during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Macdonough downed one of the Japanese attack planes before heading out to sea to join others in the search for the Japanese task force. For the next 3½ months, the destroyer performed scouting assignments southwest of Oahu. Before returning to Pearl Harbor to escort convoys to and from west coast ports, she steamed as far as New Guinea, supporting airstrikes on Bougainville, Salamaua, and Lae.
Read more about this topic: USS Macdonough (DD-351)
Famous quotes containing the words pearl and/or harbor:
“For the first fourteen years for a rod they do whine,
For the next as a pearl in the world they do shine,
For the next trim beauty beginneth to swerve,
For the next matrons or drudges they serve,
For the next doth crave a staff for a stay,
For the next a bier to fetch them away.”
—Thomas Tusser (c. 1520–1580)
“What do we want with this vast and worthless area, of this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds, of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs; to what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound, cheerless, uninviting and not a harbor in it?”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)