World War II Atlantic Ocean Operations
Following shakedown training in Bermuda and refresher training in Casco Bay, Maine, Wingfield reported for duty on 1 April 1944 as a training ship for the Destroyer Escort School. She began her primary work on 8 April when she began an escort voyage for a coastal convoy to New York. Wingfield, in company with Thornhill (DE-195), cleared Norfolk, Virginia, on the 16th for a submarine hunt south of Cape Hatteras, then to Great Sound, Bermuda. She returned to Norfolk on 1 May and became the flagship of Destroyer Escort Division 55.
All ships of this division entered New York harbor on 9 May 1944 and returned to Norfolk the next day with the New York section of Convoy UGS-42, bound for North Africa. This 108-ship convoy sortied from Hampton Roads on 13 May and reached Bizerte, Tunisia, on 1 June. She returned to New York with another convoy on 29 June and got underway from that port on 10 July for refresher training in Casco Bay. Between 24 July and 7 September, she made a second voyage, escorting UGS-49, from Norfolk to Bizerte and back to New York.
After completing voyage repairs in the New York Navy Yard and battle practices at Casco Bay, Wingfield cleared New York on 14 October 1944 for the first of five escort voyages to ports in Great Britain. She returned to New York from Plymouth, England, on 9 November. Wingfield again sailed from New York to Plymouth and back between 2 December 1944 and 1 January 1945. She made a run from New York to Roath Docks, Cardiff, Wales, and back between 18 January and 18 February; one from Boston to Roath Docks and back to New York between 8 March and 4 April; and one from New York to Southampton, England, and back between 24 April and 23 May 1945. She was at Southampton on "V-E Day" and enjoyed the honor of escorting the first peacetime convoy from England to New York.
Despite the presence of aggressive "wolfpacks" of U-boats during the later days of the war, not one ship escorted by Wingfield was damaged by an enemy submarine. During her service in the North Atlantic, this ship rendered medical aid to merchant vessels in convoy on more than 100 occasions.
Read more about this topic: USS Wingfield (DE-194)
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