Ships
- USS Porter (DD-800) Captain from 5 December 1945
John Haydon Parker, a commander in the United States Navy, became captain of the destroyer Porter on 5 December 1945. The ship, hull number DD-800, was the fourth Navy vessel named for Commodore David Porter and his son, Admiral David Dixon Porter.
Porter was a Fletcher-class destroyer built at Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle. Her keel was laid on 6 July 1943, she was launched on 13 March 1944, and she was commissioned on 24 June 1944 with Howard Riche Prince in command. From the Aleutians she spent the last year of the Pacific war with Task Force 92, sweeping the Kuriles, shelling Japanese positions at Matsuwa and Paramushiru, and pushing into the Sea of Okhotsk in the spring and early summer of 1945.
Parker took the ship after that fighting was finished. Japan had surrendered in August and September 1945. Porter closed the war in overhaul at Portland, Oregon, then escorted the carrier Enterprise from Seattle to San Francisco, ran refresher training at San Diego, and steamed for the Atlantic.
His command opened on 5 December 1945, in the months when a wartime destroyer was being wound down for peace. On 3 July 1946 Porter was placed out of commission in reserve at Charleston, South Carolina, and joined the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. The ship returned to commission on 9 February 1951 and later served off Korea, years after the tour recorded for Parker.