USS Willard Keith (DD-775) - World War II

World War II

After shakedown training out of San Diego, California, Willard Keith operated temporarily out of the Pre-commissioning Training Center at San Francisco, California, as training ship for engineering personnel. During that time, she made weekly trips from San Francisco to San Clemente Island and back.

It is rumored that, during one of these runs from San Clemente to San Francisco, the Willard Kieth encountered, depth-charged, and supposedly destroyed a sonar contact of unknown origin or nationality. The matter was allegedly suppressed by the ship's officers, save the eyewitness accounts of some crew members. However, no documentation or physical proof of this alleged encounter has been discovered. A few remaining crew of the Willard Keith have formed a non-profit organization (The Marine War Memorial Association of Half Moon Bay, CA) with the mission of finding and memorializing this alleged sunken wreck.

Completing that tour of training duty in mid-April 1945, Willard Keith sailed for the Western Pacific (WestPac) on 16 April, heading for Pearl Harbor in company with Atlanta (CL-104) and Tillman (DD-641). After onward routing to the forward area, Willard Keith arrived at Okinawa on 29 May. Assigned screening and radar picket duties for the remainder of the Okinawan campaign, Willard Keith destroyed two Japanese planes during her tour. Her closest brush with the enemy came on the final day of the campaign when a Japanese torpedo plane winged in low and unobserved and launched her "fish." Fortunately, the warhead proved a dud and only left a dent in Willard Keith's hull.

After her baptism of fire, Willard Keith then joined a cruiser-destroyer task force on 24 June for anti-shipping sweeps into the East China Sea. Due to the losses inflicted upon the once-large Japanese merchant marine, however, the pickings were slim. Willard Keith spent the remainder of the war engaged in such largely fruitless operations and, with the coming of the Japanese surrender, drew screening duties with the initial occupying forces in the erstwhile enemy's home waters. That autumn, the destroyer visited the Japanese ports of Wakayama, Yokosuka, Nagoya, and Tokyo, on occasion performing courier service between ports, carrying men and mail.

Chosen as the flagship for Commodore John T. Bottom, Jr., Commander, Task Flotilla 1 and area commander, Willard Keith wore the commodore's burgee pennant while remaining at Nagoya from the last part of October until early December. On 5 December, Commodore Bottom's burgee came down, and Willard Keith put to sea to rendezvous with her sisterships in Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 66. She then sailed east, reaching the west coast in time to spend Christmas at San Diego, California