USS Ward (DD-137/APD-14) Deck Gun Memorial (Saint Paul, Minnesota)

 Second World War 1939-1945, monument, United States Navy, war memorial

Enshrined here on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol is the #1 4"/50 Caliber Mark 9 Naval Gun once mounted aboard the bow of the Destroyer USS Ward (DD-137).

USS Ward was a Wickes Class Destroyer built in 1918 at the Mare Island Navy Yard as part of the American Naval build up after the US entrance into the First World War, though she saw no action in the conflict and decommissioned into reserve in 1920. Recommissioned in January 1941 the Ward was sent to Pearl Harbor Naval Base where she conducted Neutrality Patrols around the Hawaiian Islands as US/Japanese relations steadily grew more hostile.

On patrol at dawn outside the mouth to Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, the crew of the USS Ward, comprised mainly of Minnesota Naval Reservists, spotted a Japanese Ko-hyoteki Class Midget Submarine on the surface roughly 100 yards off her Port bow and raced to their gun stations. At 0645hrs, the crew of Gun #1 fired the first American shot of the Second World War at the submarine, missing the tiny sub by only a few inches. Their second shot, along with a round from the Ward's #3 gun mount, struck the Sub on her conning tower, exposing her two-man crew to catastrophic flooding and sinking the submarine in over 1000ft of water, thus closing the first combat and first American Naval victory of the Second World War.

Though the Ward's combat action report was initially met with skepticism ashore, the later events of December 7th lent considerable credence to her crew's report of sinking a Japanese Submarine. Though the Ward's accomplishment was overshadowed by the horror of the Surprise Attack on Pearl Harbor later in the day, the gun mount was saved when the Ward underwent conversion to a High Speed Amphibious Transport in 1942 and placed into storage at the Bremerton Naval Yard.

Following the Ward's loss on December 7th, 1944 off Ormoc Bay in the Philippines after being kamikazed, her bow gun took on even more historical significance as the only surviving piece of the ship. Presented to the people of Minnesota by the Minnesota Naval Reserve and US Navy in 1958, the year of the Minnesota Centennial, the gun now serves as a memorial to the USS Ward and all Minnesotans who have served their country.

www.navsource.org/archives/05/139.htm
www.navsource.org/archives/10/04/04016.htm