USS Cassin Young (DD-793) (Boston, Massachusetts)

 destroyer (ship), NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, United States Navy, museum ship, U.S. National Historic Landmark

Laid down on March 18th, 1943 at the Bethlehem Steel San Pedro Shipbuilding Yard as the 163rd member of the Fletcher Class of Destroyers built for the US Navy, the USS Cassin Young (DD-793) commissioned into service with the US Pacific Fleet on December 31st 1943. The second member of the Fletcher Class named in honor of Navy sailors lost in the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Cassin Young honored Medal of Honor and Navy Cross recipient Capt Cassin Young, Commander of the Repair Ship USS Vestal (AR-4) which was moored alongside the ill-fated USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor Attack and later the Commander of the Heavy Cruiser USS San Francisco (CA-38), aboard which he was killed in action during the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on November 13th, 1942.

Standing out of San Francisco for Hawaii on her shakedown cruise, the new Destroyer and her crew completed their training in the waters off Hawaii before joining Task Force 58 as a radar picket in April 1944. Screening the Task Force’s Carriers as they sent airstrikes towards Truk, Woleai, Satawan, and Ponape through June, at which time she returned to Pearl Harbor for reassignment. Paired with Escort Carrier forces steaming for the Marianas Islands, the crew aboard Cassin Young got their first exposure to the nature of the island-hopping battle for the Pacific as they lent their fire support to ground troops fighting for control of Saipan from Japanese forces, then moved to both Tinian, Rota and Guam for more of the same through early August. Moving Westward with TF38’s Carrier Forces towards Palau to strike at Japanese airfields and installations on that island and on the occupied American colony of the Philippines, the Young continued Westward to waters East of Formosa in early October. Met in the West Philippine Sea by what remained of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Air Service in the area, Cassin Young’s crew spent two straight days protecting their Carriers from dogged Japanese airstrikes during the Formosa Air Battle, emerging on the 18th of October with several enemy planes downed to her credit.

Moving to the East of Luzon, Cassin Young and her crew stood by their Carriers as they launched airstrikes in support of Amphibious Landings at Leyte Gulf on October 20th, and remained so stationed awaiting the inevitable Japanese response. Four days into the Philippines Campaign, Cassin Young’s crew found themselves and their charges under ferocious enemy air attack which for the first time saw the use of the Kamikaze suicide plane in combat. Though she emerged undamaged from the action of the 24th, the Young spent much of the subsequent day assisting with the recovery of crew from the less-fortunate USS Princeton (CVL-23) before she was ordered Northwards to intercept a Japanese surface force off Cape Engaño. Still well out of visual range of her enemy by the time US Carrier pilots laid waste to the sacrificial Japanese “Northern Force” of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Young reunited with her Carriers and remained on station supporting US ground forces in the Philippines through the end of 1944.

Overhauled at Ulithi atoll at the end of January, the Cassin Young was ordered to the Volcano Islands, where she screened and provided radar picket services to Carriers softening up Japanese positions on Iwo Jima in advance of the February 19th Amphibious Assault, after which she escorted empty troopships back to Ulithi and received new orders sending the ship to Okinawa. Assigned to work with bombardment forces rather than her usual compliment of Carriers, the Young’s crew spent much of March 1945 engaged in shore bombardment and fire support duties off the Japanese island, however the increasing amount of Kamikaze attacks saw the Destroyer reassigned to radar picket duty on the 5th of April. Coming under attack for the first of many times the following day, the Young’s gunners claimed the first of what would turn into nine confirmed attacking aircraft, though the determined Japanese pilots succeeded in sinking or severely damaging many of the Young’s fellow picket ships during the subsequent months. Struck herself with minor damage by Kamikaze’s on April 12th, the Young took far more serious damage on July 28th, barely 10 days out from the end of hostilities, when a single Kamikaze struck the ship’s Port Side at her Fire Control Room, causing 22 deaths and 45 casualties to her crew. Strident damage control efforts got the wounded ship quickly underway towards the safety of Kerama Retto anchorage, where she was repaired and ordered back to the United States for the first time since January of 1944.

Returning stateside to news of a potential armistice with Japan, the Cassin Young returned to her builders yard for a full overhaul, at the completion of which the she was decommissioned and placed into reserve in May 1946. Her war over, the Cassin Young and her crew counted 7 Battle Stars and the Navy Unit Commendation to their credit for their efforts with the US Pacific Fleet.

Remaining in reserve for the next five years, the outbreak of war in Korea and the heating up of the Cold War brought the Young back into active commission in September 1951, at which time she departed Pacific waters for her new base at Newport, Rhode Island and joined the US Atlantic Fleet. Spending the next nine years engaged in regular deployments and training exercises with the Atlantic Fleet in the Caribbean, North Atlantic and Mediterranean, the Cassin Young made a round-the-world cruise in 1954 which saw her operating back in the Western Pacific for the first time since World War Two, and included armistice patrols off the Korean Peninsula before returning to Newport. Having never been given a full postwar overhaul to bring her to the standard of her 1960’s counterparts, the Cassin Young found her weapons suite and onboard systems becoming increasingly outdated, and rather than overhauling the aging ship the US Nave elected to decommission the Cassin Young for the final time on April 29th, 1960. Placed into the Reserve Fleet at Philadelphia, the ship remained mothballed for the next fourteen years before being stricken from the Naval Register, and was subsequently selected to be one of the four Fletcher Class Destroyers to be offered for preservation as a museum. Finding a home at the former Boston Naval Shipyard, which itself had built several Fletcher Class Ships, the Cassin Young was leased to the National Park service in 1978 and was towed to her new home, arriving in June 1978 for an extensive overhaul for her new career.

Opened to the public in 1981 and Moored close to the USS Constitution, the Cassin Young forms part of the Boston National Historical Park and continues to serve as a museum ship and monument to her crews, Destroyer sailors, Veterans and also the shipyard workers who worked in the Boston Naval Shipyard on ships like the Young herself. Though she is still owned by the US Navy, she is maintained and operated by the National Park Service with the dedicated assistance of volunteers. The Cassin Young joins the USS Kidd (DD-661) as one of the best-preserved examples of a WWII-era Fletcher Class Destroyer.

www.dd793.com/
hnsa.org/ships/young.htm
www.navsource.org/archives/05/793.htm