Ships
- USS Hunt (DD-674) Captain, 31 March 1945 – 15 December 1945
Fred Earle McEntire Jr. was a commander in the United States Navy and a graduate of the Naval Academy class of 1938. On 31 March 1945, in the last spring of the Pacific war, he assumed command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Hunt (DD-674).
Hunt had been in commission since 22 September 1943, when she entered service from the yard at Kearny, New Jersey, under Frank Paull Mitchell, Jr.. William Kittridge Rogers held her briefly that December, and Halford A. Knoertzer then took her through the fast-carrier campaign from the Marshalls to the Philippines and on toward Japan. McEntire relieved Knoertzer with the ship already committed to the fight for Okinawa.
Off the Ryukyus, Hunt stood radar picket and screened the ships supporting the landing. On 14 April 1945 a kamikaze dove at her. The guns hit the aircraft on the way in, and the wreck still struck at deck level, carried away the mainmast, and cut into the forward stack, leaving a wing there while the fuselage fell into the water about twenty-five yards from the side. The crew put out the small fires, and the destroyer remained with the force. On 30 May she left the Ryukyus for a tender overhaul in Leyte Gulf. By then her men had been called to general quarters fifty-four times.
Hunt sailed for the United States on 19 June 1945 and reached San Francisco on 6 July for overhaul. The war ended while she was on the West Coast. McEntire stayed in command through the inactivation, and on 15 December 1945 the ship was decommissioned at San Diego. His tour as captain closed the same day.
Hunt remained out of commission until 31 October 1951, when she returned to service at San Diego under Lynn F. Barry. McEntire's command was the last of her wartime captaincies, the one that brought her home from Okinawa and laid her up at the end of the war.