Ships
- USS Kimberly (DD-521) Captain from 25 October 1944
Commander James Dickson Whitfield of the United States Navy became captain of the destroyer Kimberly on 25 October 1944. He held the rank of commander while serving as the officer in command. From that day the ship and the men assigned to her were his responsibility.
Kimberly (DD-521) was a Fletcher-class destroyer, one of the fast fleet destroyers built in large numbers for the Second World War. She carried five-inch guns, torpedoes, depth charges, and a heavy battery of lighter weapons for defense against aircraft. Ships of her class screened carriers and transports, guarded convoys, searched for submarines, and closed the beach to fire on shore targets before landings.
Whitfield took command in the week American forces landed on Leyte and fought the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the series of fleet actions that ran from 23 to 26 October 1944. The fight to recover the Philippines continued for months afterward. A destroyer captain in those waters kept his ship on station with the formation, stood watches against aircraft and submarines, and saw that the guns, the engineering plant, and a crew of about three hundred stayed ready for the next order.
In 1945 the Pacific war moved on toward Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Japanese aircraft, including planes sent to crash into ships, made gunnery and damage control part of ordinary destroyer duty. On the bridge of Kimberly, Whitfield’s work was to set course and speed, to hold the ship in company with the fleet, and to decide how she would fight when contact came.
From 25 October 1944, Commander Whitfield’s name is joined to Kimberly by that command. He held authority over the vessel, answered for her navigation and her fitness for battle, and carried that duty in the last year of the war at sea.