Ships
- USS Wiley (DD-597) Captain from 22 February 1945
Benjamin Prince Field, Jr., was born in 1908 and graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1931. He was commissioned an ensign on 4 June 1931, became a lieutenant (junior grade) in June 1934, and a lieutenant in July 1939. After the United States entered the Second World War he was advanced to temporary lieutenant commander in June 1942 and to temporary commander that November. He later retired from the Navy as a captain.
On 1 February 1943 he took command of the destroyer Boyle (DD-600). He was still her commanding officer in August 1944, when Allied forces landed in southern France. From 18 to 30 August he worked Boyle along the right flank of the central assault, maneuvering her under fire from coastal guns and turning her battery on batteries ashore, on troops and tanks, and on supply routes behind the beaches. That stretch of shore bombardment earned him the Silver Star. He left Boyle on 27 September 1944.
His next ship was new. On 22 February 1945, at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington, Field commissioned Wiley (DD-597) and became her first commanding officer. She was a Fletcher-class destroyer, laid down in August 1943 and launched on 25 September 1944. The sponsor at the launching had been the wife of Vice Admiral Herbert V. Wiley.
Wiley spent her shakedown out of San Diego through the end of April 1945, then returned to Puget Sound for post-shakedown work. She sailed from Port Angeles on 19 May and reached Pearl Harbor on the 26th. After about three weeks of training off Oahu, Field took her to sea on 13 June as escort for the escort carrier Cape Gloucester, bound for the Philippines. The destroyer arrived at Leyte on 13 July and at Subic Bay on the 15th.
She stayed in Philippine waters for training through the first week of August. Late in July she went out from Subic Bay with Task Force 74 for exercises, and on 31 July she sailed again with the destroyer Hart for antisubmarine practice against the submarine Carbonero. On 9 August Field left Subic Bay with a small group of tankers headed for the Ryukyu Islands. Japan surrendered during that period, and Wiley's wartime service remained escort and training duty.
With the fighting over, Field took Wiley into the occupation. On 6 September 1945 she covered the landing of American troops at Inchon, Korea, alongside the cruisers of Cruiser Division 6, and she also operated off the China coast. He remained her commanding officer into 1946. Wiley was then decommissioned and laid up in reserve at San Diego, where she stayed until she was sold for scrap in 1970. Field died on 1 February 1999.