Ships
- USS Sterett (DD-407) Captain, 27 January 1945 – 2 November 1945
Gordon Bennett Williams was born in Massillon, Ohio, on 8 April 1915. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1938 and served in the United States Navy through the Second World War, holding the rank of commander while in command at sea. He retired as a captain and died on 10 August 2000.
On 27 January 1945, in the Philippine Sea, he relieved Francis Joseph Lucien Blouin as commanding officer of the destroyer Sterett (DD-407). The two officers changed over by highline. Williams was the ship's fifth commanding officer, and the last. Sterett was a Benham-class destroyer built at the Charleston Navy Yard and commissioned in August 1939. By the time he came aboard she had already fought through the Solomons and the Central Pacific drive, and she carried a Presidential Unit Citation and eleven battle stars.
For the rest of the winter Sterett patrolled and escorted convoys in the South and Central Pacific. By the first of April, Williams had her on the radar picket line off Okinawa as American forces went ashore in the Ryukyus. That duty added her twelfth battle star. On 6 April a suicide plane hit Bennett, on the picket line with her, and Williams took Sterett with the damaged destroyer to Zampa Misaki on Okinawa.
On 9 April, northeast of Okinawa, suicide aircraft attacked Sterett and the two landing craft on the station with her. Williams fought the ship at close range. Her guns knocked planes down and turned others away, but one crashed into the starboard side at the waterline, under the bridge. The blast opened a hole about ten feet across, burst into the mess compartment, started fires, and damaged a diesel generator and the fuel tanks below. Power, communications, and steering failed. Nobody was killed, and the injuries were slight. The crew held her together and brought her into Kerama Retto under her own power. The Silver Star given to Williams recognized the heavy, accurate gunfire he directed through an attack that ran its course in about two and a half minutes.
The hit ended Sterett's fighting. She was repaired at the navy yard in Bremerton, Washington, and the rest of the Pacific war passed while she was out of action. After the surrender she reached Pearl Harbor on 28 September 1945, passed through the Panama Canal in October, and arrived at New York on 17 October. On 2 November 1945, the last day of Williams's command, Sterett was decommissioned. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 25 February 1947, and on 10 August 1947 she was sold for scrap.