USS William D. Porter (DD-579) - Atlantic Service

Atlantic Service

William D. Porter departed Orange shortly after being commissioned. After stops at Galveston, Tex., and Algiers, La., the destroyer headed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 30 July for shakedown. She completed shakedown a month later and, following a brief stop at Bermuda, continued on to Charleston, S.C., where she arrived on 7 September. Porter completed post-shakedown repairs at Charleston and got underway for Norfolk, Va., at the end of the month. For about five weeks, the warship operated from Norfolk conducting battle practice with Intrepid (CV-11) and other ships of the Atlantic Fleet.

On 12 November, she departed Norfolk to rendezvous with Iowa (BB-61) the following day. That battleship was on her way to North Africa carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Cairo and Teheran Conferences. Porter was involved in a major mishap while departing Norfolk when her anchor tore the railing and lifeboat mounts off a docked sister destroyer while maneuvering astern. The next day, a depth charge from the deck of Porter fell into the rough sea and exploded, causing Iowa and the other escort ships to take evasive maneuvers under the assumption that the task force had come under torpedo attack by a German U-boat.

On 14 November, at Roosevelt's request, Iowa conducted an anti-aircraft drill to demonstrate her ability to defend herself. The drill began with the release of a number of balloons for use as targets. While most of these were shot by gunners aboard Iowa, a few of them drifted toward William D. Porter which shot down balloons as well. Porter, along with the other escort ships, also demonstrated a torpedo drill by simulating a launch at Iowa. This drill suddenly went awry when the #3 torpedo aboard Porter discharged from its tube and headed toward Iowa.

William D. Porter attempted to signal Iowa about the incoming torpedo but, owing to orders to maintain radio silence, was forced to use a signal lamp. However, the destroyer first misidentified the direction of the torpedo and then relayed the wrong message, informing Iowa that Porter was backing up, rather than that a torpedo was in the water. In desperation the destroyer finally broke radio silence, using codewords that relayed a warning message to Iowa regarding the incoming torpedo. After confirming the identity of the destroyer, Iowa turned hard to avoid being hit by the torpedo. Roosevelt, meanwhile, had learned of the incoming torpedo threat and asked his Secret Service attendee to move his wheelchair to the side of the battleship, so he could see. Not long afterward, the torpedo detonated in the ship's wake, some 3,000 yards astern of the Iowa. Iowa was unhurt, but trained her main guns on William D. Porter out of concern that the smaller ship might have been involved in some sort of assassination plot.

Following these events, the William D. Porter's captain, and her entire crew, were placed under arrest — the first time in U.S. Navy history that this had occurred. The ship and her crew were ordered to Bermuda for an inquiry into the Iowa affair. Lieutenant Commander Walter and several of his officers were sentenced to shore duty. Torpedoman Lawton Dawson, whose failure to remove the torpedo's primer had enabled it to fire at Iowa, was sentenced to hard labor, though President Roosevelt intervened in his case, as the incident had been an accident.

A week later, William D. Porter returned to Norfolk and prepared for transfer to the Pacific. She got underway for that duty on 4 December, steamed via Trinidad, and reached the Panama Canal on the 12th. After transiting the canal, the destroyer set a course for San Diego, where she stopped between 19 and 21 December to take on cold weather clothing and other supplies necessary for duty in the Aleutian Islands.