Wreck of USS Little (DD-803)

 Second World War 1939-1945, military, shipwreck, destroyer (ship), draw only border, United States Navy

Laid down in September 1943 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle as the second-to-last ship of the Fletcher Class of Destroyers, USS Little was named in honor of the previous USS Little (DD-79/APD-4), a WWI-era Destroyer converted to a Fast Amphibious Transport and sunk in action off Guadalcanal in September 1942. Commissioned into US Navy service in August 1944, the Little and her crew spent two months training off the US West Coast before departing the mainland for Hawaii as an escort for a merchant convoy.

Spending the balance of 1944 engaged in fleet exercises and battle tactics training off the Hawaiian Islands and Eniwetok, the Little and her crew received their first combat orders in late January 1945 and set a course for Saipan where they joined US Amphibious Forces massing for the upcoming Invasion of Iwo Jima. After screening an LST convoy to the invasion beaches, the Little began five straight days of continuous fire support for invasion forces before escorting her LST’s back to Saipan. After another period on the gunline off Iwo, the Little and her crew were back at Saipan and joining another US Invasion Force, this time bound for the Japanese Island of Okinawa.

Arriving off Okinawa on April 1st, 1945 the Little and several other Destroyers and Minesweepers shelled and cleared the invasion beaches for amphibious forces for two days before screening the LST’s as the landed US Forces on April 3rd. Alternating between fire support, anti-submarine sweeps and screening amphibs for the subsequent 16 days, the Little and her crew like the rest of the assembled US Fleet began to deal with an ever-increasing number of Japanese Kamikaze aircraft operating over Okinawa, and on April 19th the order came for the Little to take up the highly dangerous work of a radar picket vessel. Assigned to Picket Station #1 from April 20th-24th, the Little and her crew stood sentinel over the Northern approach to Okinawa, reporting any airborne or submarine contacts to the assembled fleet to their South to provide a modicum of advanced warning against the Kamikaze planes and subs ravaging the American Fleet.

Emerging from her first duty on the picket line unscathed, the Little and her crew were given a brief reprieve at Kerama Retto to rearm and reprovision before they were back out on picket duty, this time at station #10 to the West of Kerama Retto alongside the USS Aaron Ward (APD-34) and four smaller fire support ships. After nine days of repeated air attack the Little and her crew were quick to take their stations when general quarters alarms sounded in the evening of May 3rd, 1945 as radar operators aboard the Aaron Ward began reporting up to 24 enemy aircraft inbound. Sending up a pall of anti-aircraft fire at 1815hrs, the Little’s crew drove off several attempts by Kamikaze pilots to hit their ship, however several coordinated attacks were able to overwhelm her gunners and the first Kamikaze to strike the Little in the action did so at 1843hrs, slamming into the Destroyer’s Port side between the after fire room and the forward engine room. A second plane following the first was successfully shot down but a third coming from the same angle managed to weave through the AA fire and hit the ship in the exact same spot as a fourth streaked down from the cloud cover and slammed into the Little’s aft torpedo mount at 1845. Reeling from three Kamikaze impacts in two minutes, gunners and crew aboard the Little were unable to stop a fourth Kamikaze from swooping in and slamming into the ship at her #2 funnel on the Port side, causing further damage and casualties among the ships already dazed crew.

Severely damaged, aflame and slowing to a halt, the Little and her crew began their fight for survival. With three of her four midship machinery spaces blown out and compromised, the Little began to settle amidships as all power onboard cut out, robbing Little’s gunners of their ability to fight off their attackers. With fires in her aft torpedo mount threatening to detonate the torpedo warheads at any moment, the ship dead in the water and without power to defend herself, the Little’s Captain passed the order to abandon ship shortly before the accumulating stress of battle damage and inrushing water snapped the Destroyer’s keel and the ship began to break up on the surface. With her surviving crew scrambling over the side, the Little snapped in half and quickly sank at this location, suffering a large order detonation as she went down which further injured and killed many of the men in the water. Survivors, including the ships dog, were pulled from the water shortly after the Little went down, however 30 men were listed as lost with the ship as a result of the Kamikaze attack on May 3rd, 1945.

For her actions during the Second World War, USS Little received two Battle Stars.

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