Ships
- USS Haraden (DD-585) Captain from 16 September 1943
Commander H. C. Allen, Jr., took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Haraden (DD-585) when she was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 16 September 1943. The yard had launched her on 19 March 1943. Caroline E. Derby, a great-great-grandniece of the Revolutionary War privateer Jonathan Haraden, sponsored the ship. Haraden was the second U.S. Navy destroyer to carry that name.
Allen took her out of Boston on 9 October 1943 for shakedown training off Bermuda. With that work finished, she met the carrier Intrepid at Boston on 30 November and sailed for the Pacific. She passed the Panama Canal and reached San Diego on 21 December 1943, where she joined Rear Admiral Oldendorf's Northern Support Group for the invasion of the Marshall Islands.
Escorting the main body of attack transports, Haraden entered the Marshalls on 30 January 1944. The next day she screened battleships and cruisers through the heavy bombardment. As troops landed on Ennubir Island under that fire, she shifted to close support and turned her guns on an ammunition dump on Ennagannet Island, which blew up. She patrolled against submarines that night. On 1 February she again gave fire support and kept patrol during the landings on Roi and Namur.
On 6 February she left Kwajalein on an escort voyage to the Ellice Islands and returned on 15 February. She then stayed on anti-submarine patrol for ships off Kwajalein and Eniwetok until 29 February. Haraden arrived at Pearl Harbor on 8 March 1944. After a short upkeep she went back to the Marshalls with two fleet oilers, arriving on 1 April, and through 18 May she rotated between fire support and submarine patrol before sailing for Pearl Harbor with the escort carrier Bataan.
Allen had been her captain from the day of commissioning, and he remained in command through her further Pacific duty in 1944. His tour ended in November 1944. In that opening year he had taken a newly commissioned destroyer from Boston into the Central Pacific assault, screening heavy ships, escorting transports and oilers, and using her guns in support of the landings.