USS Stevens (DD-479) - 1943

1943

Stevens was one of the three Fletcher-class destroyers to be completed with a catapult for a float plane, the others being Pringle (DD-477) and Halford (DD-480). The catapult and an aircraft crane were located just aft of the number 2 smokestack, in place of the after torpedo tube mount, 5 inch mount number 3, and the 2nd deck of the after deck house which normally carried a twin 40 mm anti-aircraft gun on most ships of the class. (The twin 40 mm mount was moved to the fantail, just forward of the depth charge racks, where most ships of the class carried 20 mm mounts.) It was intended that the float plane be used for scouting for the destroyer flotilla which the ship was attached to. It would be launched by the catapult, land on the water next to the ship, and be recovered by the aircraft crane. It turned out to be not operationally suitable for the intended purpose, and the 3 ships were ultimately converted to the standard Fletcher-class configuration.

Stevens completed shakedown in the Atlantic during the spring of 1943, then escorted coastal convoys before heading for the Panama Canal in July. On 26 July she transited the canal, and moored at Balboa the following day. She departed on 28 July, headed west to Hawaii, and entered Pearl Harbor on 9 August. By that time, American industrial prowess was beginning to produce and put into action the powerful naval force which, within two years, brought the Japanese Empire to its knees. Stevens, one of a new class of fast, well-armed destroyers, joined three new Essex-class aircraft carriers and the fast battleships Alabama (BB-60) and South Dakota (BB-57) in augmenting the U.S. Pacific Fleet. In late August, she accompanied the Task Force 15 (TF 15) carriers to warm-up raids on the Gilbert Islands. Their planes hit Marcus Island on the 31st and Tarawa on 18 September, but Stevens parted company with them and steamed for the West Coast before their 5 and 6 October raids on Wake Island. By the time of her departure from the west coast on the 6th, the assaults on Makin and on Tarawa had been made, and the atolls were all but secure.