USS William D. Porter (DD-579) was a of the United States Navy, named for Commodore William D. Porter (1808–1864). She served during World War II in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, the latter of which was where she was sunk by a kamikaze aircraft.
Construction William D. Porter was laid down on 7 May 1942 at Orange, Texas, United States, by the Consolidated Steel Corporation; launched on 27 September 1942, sponsored by Miss Mary Elizabeth Reeder; and commissioned on 6 July 1943.
Atlantic service William D. Porter departed Orange shortly after being commissioned. After stops at Galveston, TX, and Algiers, LA, the destroyer headed for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 30 July 1943 for shakedown. She completed shakedown a month later and, following a brief stop at Bermuda, continued on to Charleston, SC, 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 and other ships of the Atlantic Fleet.
On 12 November 1943, the ship departed Norfolk to rendezvous with . Iowa, a brand new battleship, was on her way to North Africa, carrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Cairo and Tehran Conferences. William D. Porter was reported to have been involved in a mishap while departing Norfolk when her anchor tore the railing and lifeboat mounts off a docked sister destroyer while maneuvering astern. William D. Porter was moored between and with Cogswell pierside. None of the three ships reported giving or receiving damage to one another in their war diaries during the first half of November 1943. The next day, a depth charge from the deck of William D. 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. Ships logs from William D. Porter and Iowa do not mention a lost depth charge nor a U-boat search on 13 November. Both logs do mention that William D. Porter experienced a boiler tube failure on #3 boiler causing the ship to fall out of position in the formation until number 4 boiler was brought online.
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 a live torpedo discharged from mount #2 aboard William D. Porter and headed straight towards Iowa.
William D. Porter attempted to signal Iowa about the incoming torpedo but, owing to orders to maintain radio silence, used a signal lamp instead. 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 astern of Iowa. As a result of this incident, US ships would routinely greet the destroyer with the joke "Don't shoot! We're Republicans!" on account of Roosevelt being a Democrat. The entire incident lasted about 4 minutes from torpedo firing at 14:36 to detonation at 14:40.
Following these events, the ship and her crew were ordered to Bermuda for an inquiry into the Iowa affair. Chief Torpedoman (CTM(AA)) Lawton Dawson, whose failure to remove the torpedo's primer had enabled it to fire at Iowa, was later sentenced to hard labor, though Roosevelt intervened in his case and pardoned him, as the incident had been an accident. Contrary to Internet legend, LCDR Walter was not relieved of command following the incident and remained in command until 30 May 1944. He later commanded other ships and eventually became a rear admiral. William D. Porter was in Bermuda from 16 to 23 November 1943; no mention was made of awaiting Marines or the entire crew being "arrested" in the ship's logs.
On 25 November, 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.
North Pacific campaign
On 29 December, William D. Porter arrived in Dutch Harbor, on the island of Unalaska, and joined Task Force 94 (TF 94). Between 2 and 4 January 1944, she voyaged from Dutch Harbor to Adak, whence she conducted training operations until her departure for Hawaii on the seventh. The warship entered Pearl Harbor on 22 January and remained there until 1 February at which time the destroyer put to sea again to escort to Adak. The two ships arrived at their destination nine days later, and Porter began four months of relatively uneventful duty with TF 94. She sailed between the various islands in the Aleutians chain, serving primarily as an antisubmarine escort.
Commander Charles M. Keyes (USNA '32) relieved Lieutenant Commander Walter as commanding officer on 30 May 1944.
On 10 June, the destroyer stood out of Attu and headed for the Kuril Islands. She and the other ships of TF 94 reached their destination early on the morning of the 13th. They started to shell their target, the island of Matsuwa, at 05:13. After 20 minutes, William D. Porter'''s radar picked up an unidentified surface vessel, closing her port quarter at a speed in excess of 55 knots (100 km/h). Her radar personnel tentatively identified the craft as an enemy PT-type boat, and the warship ceased fire on Matsuwa to take the new target under fire. Soon thereafter, the craft's reflection disappeared from the radar screen, presumably the victim of TF 94's gunfire. Not long afterward, the task force completed its mission and retired from the Kurils to refuel at Attu.
On 24 June, the destroyer left Attu with TF 94 for her second mission in the Kurils. Following two days at sea in steadily increasing fog, she arrived off Paramushiro on the 26th. In a dense fog with visibility down to about 200 yards, she delivered her gunfire and then departed with TF 94 to return to the Aleutians. A month of training exercises intervened between her second and third voyages to the Kurils. On 1 August, she cleared Kuluk Bay for her final bombardment of the Kurils. On the second day out, an enemy twin-engine bomber snooped on the task force and received a hail of fire from some of the screening destroyers. That proved to be the only noteworthy event of the mission, because the following day the bombardment was canceled due to poor weather and the enemy reconnaissance plane. William D. Porter dropped anchor in Massacre Bay at Attu on 4 August.
After a month of antisubmarine patrol, the warship departed the Aleutians for a brief yard period at San Francisco preparatory to reassignment to the western Pacific. She completed repairs and stood out of San Francisco on 27 September. She reached Oahu on 2 October and spent the ensuing fortnight in training operations out of Pearl Harbor. On the 18th, she resumed her voyage west; 12 days later, the warship pulled into Seeadler Harbor at Manus in the Admiralty Islands. She departed Manus early in November to escort via Hollandia to Leyte.
Philippines campaign
Though William D. Porter arrived in the western Pacific too late to participate in the actual invasion at Leyte, combat conditions persisted there after her arrival in San Pedro Bay. Soon after she anchored there, Japanese planes swooped in to attack the ships in the anchorage. The first plane fell to the guns of a nearby destroyer before reaching Porter's effective range. A second intruder appeared, however, and the destroyer's 5 inch guns joined those of the assembled transports in bringing him to a fiery end in mid-air.
For the remainder of the year, William D. Porter escorted ships between Leyte, Hollandia, Manus, Bougainville, and Mindoro. On 21 December, while steaming from Leyte to Mindoro, she encountered enemy air power once again. Two planes made steep glides and dropped several bombs near the convoy. The destroyer opened up with her main battery almost as soon as the enemies appeared but to no avail. Their bombs missed their targets by a wide margin, but the two Japanese aircraft apparently suffered no damage and made good their escape. Not long thereafter, four more airborne intruders attacked. Porter concentrated her fire on the two nearest her, one of which fell to her antiaircraft fire. The second succumbed to the combined efforts of other nearby destroyers, and the remaining two presumably retired to safety. From then until midnight, enemy aircraft shadowed the convoy, but none displayed temerity enough to attack. Before dawn the following morning, she encountered and destroyed a heavily laden, but abandoned, enemy landing barge. After completing her screening mission to Mindoro, Porter returned to San Pedro Bay on 26 December to begin preparations for the invasion of Luzon.
For the Lingayen operation, William D. Porter was assigned to the Lingayen Fire Support Group of Vice Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorf's Bombardment and Fire Support Group (TG 77.2). The destroyer departed San Pedro Bay on 2 January 1945 and joined her unit in Leyte Gulf the following day. The entire group then passed south through the Surigao Strait, thence crossed the Mindanao Sea, rounded the southern tip of Negros, and then proceeded generally north along the western coasts of Negros, Panay, Mindoro, and finally, Luzon.
By the time the unit reached the southwestern coast of Luzon, it came within the effective range of Luzon-based aircraft. Beginning on the morning of 5 January, enemy planes—including kamikazes—brought the force under attack. William D. Porter saw no action during the first stage of those attacks, because the group's combat air patrol (CAP) provided an effective protective blanket. However, the last raid broke through the CAP umbrella at 16:50 and charged to the attack. Porter took three of those planes under fire at about 17:13, but growing darkness precluded evaluation of the results of that engagement. During that raid, cruiser and escort carrier suffered extensive damage from kamikaze crashes.
Before dawn on the sixth, the destroyer moved into Lingayen Gulf with her unit to begin pre-invasion bombardment. Throughout the day, enemy planes made sporadic attacks upon the bombarding ships. That evening, William D. Porter began firing on shore batteries guarding the approaches to the landing beaches. At 17:38, her attention was diverted to a lone plane, and her antiaircraft battery brought it down handily. Twenty minutes later, a twin-engine Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" ran afoul of the destroyer's gunners who splashed this one neatly as well. Porter then returned to her primary mission, shore bombardment.