Ships
- USS Paul Jones (DD-230) Captain, 4 October 1944 to 5 November 1945
Howard Martin Payne was born in 1913 and served in the United States Naval Reserve. He held the rank of lieutenant commander from 1 July 1943. As a commander he later became captain of the destroyer Paul Jones and stayed with her until the Navy took her out of service.
His earlier wartime command was the destroyer Tarbell (DD-142), from 4 November 1943 to 15 June 1944. Tarbell was a flush-deck ship left over from the First World War and was used for escort work. Payne left her in the middle of June 1944, and his next command at sea began in the autumn.
On 4 October 1944 he took command of Paul Jones (DD-230), relieving George Paul Unmacht, who had been captain since 6 November 1943. Paul Jones was a Clemson-class destroyer built by William Cramp and Sons at Philadelphia. She was laid down on 23 December 1919, launched on 30 September 1920, and commissioned on 19 April 1921. In the years before the war she served in the Atlantic, moved to the Pacific in 1923, and spent a long stretch with the Asiatic Fleet, including duty on the China coast.
The fighting that gave the ship her reputation was already finished when Payne came aboard. On 8 December 1941 she was at Tarakan, Borneo, flagship of Destroyer Squadron 29, when news arrived of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In the weeks that followed she searched for submarines in the Dutch East Indies, took Dutch survivors out of the water, and with the Dutch destroyer Van Ghent helped bring in the abandoned Army cargo ship Liberty. She also fought in the night attack off Balikpapan and in the Battle of the Java Sea. Balikpapan was not his. John Joseph Hourihan commanded her from 15 September 1941 into March 1942, and those early battles were fought under him. Charles Richard Herms had her from March 1942 until 6 November 1943, the period of repair in Australia, the voyage back to the United States in the spring of 1942, and the escort duty that followed. The two battle stars awarded to the ship were for that Asiatic service in late 1941 and early 1942.
Payne remained captain from 4 October 1944 to 5 November 1945. On 30 June 1945 she was reclassified AG-120, a miscellaneous auxiliary. In October 1945 she was stripped of useful equipment and assigned to the Commandant of the Fifth Naval District for administration. She was decommissioned on 5 November 1945, the same day his command ended. Her name was removed from the Naval Vessel Register on 28 November 1945. The Northern Metal Company of Norfolk, Virginia, bought her on 5 October 1947 and scrapped her in April 1948.