USS Sterett (DD-407) was a in the United States Navy. She was the second Navy ship named for Andrew Sterett.
The Sterett was laid down on 2 December 1936 at the Charleston Navy Yard; launched on 27 October 1938; sponsored by Mrs. Camilla Ridgely Simpson; and commissioned on 15 August 1939.
Pre-war years
The Sterett departed from Charleston, South Carolina on 28 October 1939 in company with two other newly commissioned destroyers, and , for shakedown in the Gulf of Mexico. She visited Veracruz, Cristóbal, Mobile, and Guantanamo Bay before returning to Charleston on 20 December. She underwent post-shakedown overhaul and trials at Charleston until departing on 4 May 1940. Assigned to Destroyer Division 15, Sterett rendezvoused with at Guantanamo Bay, and the two destroyers steamed for San Diego via the Panama Canal. They arrived in San Diego on 23 May; and, for a month, Sterett divided her time between training and plane-guarding . On 24 June, she sailed for Hawaii with Enterprise and five other destroyers, and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 2 July.
She operated out of Pearl Harbor for the next 10 months, participating in a number of exercises and patrols. When exited Pearl Harbor on 14 May 1941, the Sterett was in her screen. The warships transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Norfolk on 28 June. Sterett next screened the during the escort carrier's Bermuda shakedown cruise. Sterett concluded 1941 engaged in neutrality patrols with the .
World War II
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Sterett steamed from Bermuda with the Wasp and an assortment of cruisers and destroyers to counter possible action by Vichy French ships anchored at Martinique.
1942
The Sterett spent the early months of the war patrolling off the eastern seaboard. In mid-January, she steamed to the Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, to meet Task Force 15 (TF 15) and escort a convoy to Iceland. The convoy was transferred to two British destroyers on 23 January 1942, and she entered Hvalfjörður, Iceland, on the 26th. The Sterett returned to the United States at New York City on 9 February, and she departed on the 15th to meet the passenger liner off the Boston breakwater and escort her into the harbor. After two trips between Boston and Casco Bay, Maine, the Sterett joined the USS Wasp as part of her escort to duty with the British Home Fleet. The task group entered Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands, on 4 April.
While the Wasp made her first aerial reinforcement of the embattled Malta, the Sterett operated with the British Fleet out of Scapa Flow. The destroyer was with the Wasp on her second run to Malta, 29 April to 15 May, and after returning to Scapa Flow, she headed for the United States. The task group arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on 27 May 1942. On 5 June, the Sterett steamed for San Diego, where she arrived on 19 June. She steamed out again on 1 July and, as a part of Task Force 18, steamed via Tongatapu to the Fiji Islands. She was assigned to Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner's South Pacific Amphibious Expeditionary Force and practiced invasion techniques in the Fiji Islands until 1 August 1942.
The Sterett spent the rest of 1942 and all of 1943 supporting the Allied forces as they struggled up the island staircase formed by the Solomon Islands and the Bismarck Archipelago. The Solomons invasion fleet, guarded by three carrier task groups led by the , the Enterprise, and the Wasp, arrived in the Solomons late on 6 August. The 1st Marine Division then landed at Guadalcanal. Meanwhile, the Sterett and the Wasp carrier group zigzagged into a rain squall, successfully dodging an 18-plane raid launched from Rabaul on New Britain Island.
For the next three days, the Wasp unit guarded the supply lines to Tulagi. Next, the Sterett steamed east of San Cristobal to screen the USS Long Island while she launched 31 Marine planes for the defense of Guadalcanal. Rejoining the Wasp immediately, the Sterett remained with her until DesDiv 15 was detached on 10 September 1942.
For the next month, the Sterett escorted convoys and reinforcements to the Solomon Islands. Following duty escorting the and the to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, and guarding the latter all the way to Nouméa, New Caledonia, she returned to Guadalcanal accompanying two transports, the and the , loaded with troops and equipment. While the transports unloaded, the Sterett fired on enemy bombers and shore batteries harassing Henderson Field.
The Sterett returned to the New Hebrides and, after refueling, put to sea on 31 October to protect still more reinforcements to Guadalcanal. The Sterett covered the establishment of the beachhead and later she joined the and the in a bombardment of Japanese positions near Koli Point. Two days later, she retired to Espiritu Santo.
Naval Battle of Guadalcanal
At Espiritu Santo, the Sterett met another convoy and escorted it to Lunga Point, Guadalcanal. As the troops were landing on the morning of 12 November, the Sterett took up station to meet expected air raids. Just after noon, she received word that a large formation of Japanese planes had been spotted by a coastwatcher on Buin, Papua New Guinea. In less than an hour, the attackers swooped in low against the dark background of Tulagi and Florida Island. The Sterett, directly in the line of the Japanese approach, shot down four torpedo bombers while dodging at least three torpedoes. By 14:50, 32 of the Japanese were downed by antiaircraft fire and American aircraft.
That evening, after shepherding the transports east to safety, the Sterett joined the van of the cruiser-destroyer force under the command of Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan and steamed back through Lengo Channel to intercept Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe's Japanese Navy task force. The Sterett and the other in the van, followed by five cruisers and a rear guard of four more destroyers, passed Lunga Point abeam, increased speed and, upon reaching a point about three miles (6 km) north of Tassafaronga, changed course. As the warships sped toward Savo Island, their radar screens were dotted by echoes from the Japanese ships. The Helena reported first contact at 01:30 on the 13th, and soon all the American ships were receiving reflections from the Japanese ships. The two forces were closing each other at a combined speed in excess of 40 knots (75 km/h).
The American warships threaded their way into the Japanese formation, and a deadly crossfire immediately engulfed the Sterett. At 01:50, Admiral Callaghan ordered odd ships in column to open fire to starboard and even ships to engage the enemy to port. The Sterett fired on the light cruiser Nagara to starboard, damaging Nagara with a single 5-inch (127 mm) shell hit.
At this point, the battle degenerated into a chaotic maelstrom of individual duels at very short range, with accurate “friend-or-foe” identification extremely difficult due to darkness, smoke, and a lack of radar. The Sterett attacked Hiei at a range of roughly 2,000 yards, launching four torpedoes at 0204, and peppering her superstructure with 5-inch shells. Two of the torpedoes struck Hiei starboard under turret #3 at 02:08, but did not explode Lundgren (2023) (RV Patrel exploration in 2019 confirmed the hits). Sterett then claimed a torpedo hit on the destroyer between her and Hiei, but while it thought it was a Japanese destroyer, Sterett actually observed USS Laffey being struck by a torpedo fired from the Japanese destroyer Yukikaze which blew off her stern.
At 02:15, Sterett spotted the Japanese destroyer Yūdachi, which signaled her under the belief she was a friendly Japanese ship. Sterett promptly blasted Yūdachi, shell hits from Sterett punched through Yūdachi's boiler rooms, leaving her dead in the water and adrift, and lead to the crew abandoning ship and enact a failed scuttling attempt. (the crippled Yūdachi was later located by the heavy cruiser USS Portland, which proceeded to finish her off, observing Yūdachi beginning to capsize by her 6th salvo).Some sources state Sterett crippled Yūdachi with a torpedo hit and not gunfire
However, just moments later, Sterett was ambushed by the Yukikaze, which had finished sinking Laffey and was sweeping for additional targets, prompting Yukikaze to pounce on the off guard Sterett, which was hit by eleven 5-inch (127 mm) shells. Author and torpedo commander of the USS Sterett Thomas O McWhorter wrote in the book Stand and Fight:American sources often credit the destroyer Teruzuki for crippling Sterett, but Japanese records indicate Teruzuki's contributions to the battle were far less extensive than American historians often make out, with Teruzuki being attributed for many of the actions which Yukikaze actually performed due to the latter's ambiguous records
The Sterett took eleven direct hits, all on her port side, all above the waterline, and sustained severe shrapnel damage from many near misses. Her after deck house and number three gun, an unshielded open mount back aft, were engulfed by flames that brightly illuminated the flag on the small ship's mainmast truck. Her after handling rooms were set afire, causing powder in the ready service storage to ignite ... Twenty-eight men were dead, another thirteen seriously wounded. Four leaped overboard to extinguish their burning clothes. Those who stayed aboard and saved the ship braved burning compartments to turn flood valves and remove wounded from impossible places. They defied smoke to soak powder, grid bulkheads, patch holes, fix pumps, run hoses, and keep electricity flowing. They allowed their hands to melt while connected superheated brass hose couplings to fight fires.Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal (Bantam hardcover, 2011).
At 02:30, with the Japanese retiring toward Savo Island, Sterett, her after guns and starboard torpedo tubes out of commission, began to withdraw. She had difficulty overtaking the rest of her force because of her damaged steering gear and the necessity to reduce speed periodically to control the blaze on her after deck. By dawn, she was back in formation on the starboard quarter of the San Francisco.
Before heading for Espiritu Santo on the 13th, she delivered her parting shot by depth-charging a sound contact, possibly the submarine which, about an hour later, would sink the . Sterett arrived at Espiritu Santo on 14 November, underwent emergency repairs, and departed from Espiritu Santo on 18 November, arriving in Nouméa, New Caledonia on 20 November. On 24 November, she departed for Pearl Harbor, arriving there on 4 December. She then steamed into San Francisco Bay on 11 December and entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, where she remained for two months. Sterett steamed from San Francisco on 10 February 1943, joined the at Pearl Harbor, and together they reached Espiritu Santo on 3 March. Sterett departed Espiritu Santo on 8 March and resumed her original assignment – guarding convoys to the Solomons-Bismarcks area and patrolling the area to prevent enemy reinforcements from being moved into the fray.
1943