Invasion of Sicily
On 10 July the invasion of Sicily began. On the 14th Rhind arrived off the coast, in the screen of a reinforcement convoy and joined the antiaircraft defense and fire-support group. Through the 20th she patrolled off Gela, then shifted to Palermo. After screening the mine and patrol craft which cleared the harbor, she remained on antiaircraft station. On the 26th, as she stood by the heavily damaged Mayrant (DD-402) taking off wounded and assisting in salvage work, she sustained several casualties and some damage to her hull from a near miss delivered by a Junkers 88. Through 2 August she continued to patrol off Palermo, then on the 3rd, commenced offensive sweeps near Messina, sinking an E-boat on the first day, and supported "leap frog" landings along the coast.
Caught in another air raid on the 22nd, Rhind gained a brief respite at Oran, but suffered further near misses while escorting a convoy to Bizerte through September. At Bizerte on the 6th, she fought off another raid, an attempt to disrupt the forces staging for the invasion at Salerno. On the 9th, the destroyer arrived in the Gulf of Salerno and continued her war with the Luftwaffe. On the 11th she got underway for Oran, whence, for the next month and a half, Rhind escorted reinforcements to Italy. In November she sailed for New York and, after guarding two New York to United Kingdom convoys, shifted to coastwise and Caribbean escort duty interspersed with offensive ASW activities. On 26 July 1944 she resumed transatlantic convoy duty with a run to the United Kingdom. A convoy to Naples followed in late September and, in November and December, she screened carrier Shangri-La (CV-38) on her shakedown cruise.
Read more about this topic: USS Rhind (DD-404)
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