Ships
- USS Marshall (DD-676) Captain, 14 March 1944 – 9 May 1945
Joseph Dwight McKinney was born on 6 July 1904 in Akron, Ohio, and Cuyahoga Falls was his home. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis with the class of 1927 and spent his career in the Navy, retiring as a rear admiral. He died in San Diego, California, on 17 February 1981.
On 14 March 1944 he took command of the destroyer Marshall. He relieved Sinclair Best Wright, who had been captain since the ship was commissioned at Kearny, New Jersey, on 16 October 1943. Marshall was a Fletcher-class destroyer. Before McKinney came aboard she had finished shakedown, passed through the Panama Canal, and joined the Pacific Fleet. He was a commander, and he remained her captain until 9 May 1945.
She went into the screen of the fast carrier force. In June 1944 she covered the capture of Saipan. On 19 June the Battle of the Philippine Sea opened, and over the next two days Japanese carrier air strength was badly broken. Marshall was credited with a share in shooting down two enemy aircraft while she guarded the heavier ships. She stayed with the force for the capture of Guam, for strikes on Chichi Jima and Iwo Jima early in July, and later that month for carrier raids on Palau, Ulithi, and Yap.
Through the autumn she remained with the carriers for the Palau landings, raids across the western Pacific, and the campaign in the Philippines, including the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The targets in that run of operations included Mindanao, the Visayas, Luzon, the Nansei Shoto, and Formosa. For his conduct from 9 June to 27 November 1944, McKinney received the Silver Star. The award recognized the way he fought Marshall, kept her ready through months of hard action, and used her guns against air attacks and shore positions. It also recorded that the ship had taken aboard the crews of thirteen aircraft downed in hostile water. He received the Legion of Merit as well.
In 1945 Marshall screened further strikes in the Philippines and operations in the South China Sea against Formosa and the China coast. On 10 February she sailed with Task Group 58.2 toward Japan. Carrier planes hit the Tokyo area on 16 and 17 February. The force then turned southeast to support the landings on Iwo Jima and returned to Honshu for more strikes on 25 February. In March the carriers struck Japan again. During the battle for Okinawa, from 8 April to 9 May, Marshall served as an advanced radar picket for her task group and escorted damaged ships clear of the fighting.
McKinney left Marshall on 9 May 1945, and Charles Holovak took command that day. The destroyer then started back from the forward area by way of Ulithi and Leyte and reached San Francisco on 6 July for overhaul. The war ended before that work was finished.