USS Aaron Ward

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Named for Radm. Aaron Ward, a naval officer who served in the US Navy from 1867 to 1913, the USS Aaron Ward (DD-483) was a Gleaves-class destroyer built at the Kearny, New Jersey shipyard and commissioned in March 1942. Although nominally displacing 1,630 tons, she actually displaced 1,839 tons and 2,395 tons fully loaded. She had a maximum rated speed of 35 knots with a power plant of 4 boilers, two steam turbines driving two propellers. Her armament included five 5-inch guns mounted singly in five turrets — two forward and three aft, six .50-caliber machine guns, and ten 21-inch torpedo tubes in two 5-tube mounts.

After a brief shakedown cruise in the Atlantic, the Aaron Ward went to the Pacific in May. She shepherded the escort carrier USS Long Island (CVE-1) and some older battleships from the west coast during the Battle of Midway. The destroyer then steamed to the south Pacific where she provided escort to American supply ships and warships during the struggle to hold onto Guadalcanal. During that assignment, she was with the carrier Wasp when she sank on September 15, 1942.

When Japanese aircraft appeared over Guadalcanal on October 17, the Aaron Ward sent up enough AA fire to make the planes turn around and head for home. Demonstrating the destroyer’s flexibility in the tough-to-navigate waters of Iron Bottom Sound, she then mercilessly pounded Japanese positions ashore. The destroyer then escorted convoy of transports on November 11-12 to protect the ships from Japanese air attacks.

On the night of November 12-13, she was part of an American task force of cruisers and destroyers that met a more powerful force of Japanese battleships, cruisers, and destroyers in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Despite sustaining heavy damage, the American ships prevented the japanese from bombarding Henderson Field. The Aaron Ward took several hits while fighting a one-way battle with the Japanese battleship Hiei. The destroyer eventually made it back to Pearl Harbor for repairs and a badly needed overhaul.

She returned to the southern Solomons in February 1943 just after the Japanese left Guadalcanal. Two months later, a large formation of Japanese bombers appeared in the skies above Guadalcanal while the Aaron Ward was in Tulagi harbor. When she attempted to escape in the more open waters of Iron Bottom Sound, several Japanese planes attacked her. She took one hit and several near misses. Several seams broke open in her hull and flooded her machinery compartments. When another ship tried to tow her to Tulagi, the Aaron Ward sank near the Guadalcanal shore.

In the middle 1990s, divers found her in about 240 feet of water. She stands erect on the sea floor with her bow and stern smashed when she hit the bottom while sinking. Despite the damage she sustained during her fight with the Japanese planes, the Aaron Ward shows few signs of damage. But as if she still plowed the waves, she defiantly still seems to be part of the fleet in which she proudly served.