Ships
- USS Halsey Powell (DD-686) Captain, 6 October 1944 – 30 September 1945
Sidney Douglas Buxton Merrill was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on 22 March 1914, and his home was the neighboring town of Edgewood. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy with the class of 1934 and was commissioned an ensign on 31 May of that year. His first sea duty was in the battleship Texas and the cargo ship Sirius. During the Neutrality Patrol of 1939 and 1940 he served in the destroyer Simpson, on the Atlantic watch as the United States edged toward war. He became a lieutenant (junior grade) in May 1937, a lieutenant in July 1941, a temporary lieutenant commander in March 1943, and a temporary commander on 1 February 1944.
On 6 October 1944 Merrill, then a commander, took command of the Fletcher-class destroyer Halsey Powell. He relieved William Thomas McGarry, who had commanded the ship from her commissioning at Staten Island on 25 October 1943. Merrill joined her in the western Pacific just as the fast carrier force was preparing to strike north again. The carriers had lately returned to Ulithi. Within days they sailed, sent aircraft against Okinawa, and then turned on the airfields of Formosa. On 17 October the battleship Iowa fueled Halsey Powell and the destroyers working with her, the routine that let the task force remain at sea for long stretches. Those first weeks carried Merrill straight into the Battle of Leyte Gulf, where Halsey Powell screened the carriers. A commendation later recognized his part in that campaign.
Through the winter and into early 1945, Halsey Powell remained with the fast carriers as the fleet worked closer to Japan. Merrill took her through the Iwo Jima operation and received the Bronze Star for that service. Life in the screen was a cycle of radar watch, plane-guard duty when aircraft launched and recovered, antisubmarine search on the flanks, and antiaircraft fire when Japanese planes found the formation. By March the same ships were striking the home islands, and the attacks had become deliberate crashes onto American decks.
On 20 March 1945, off Japan, Halsey Powell lay alongside the carrier Hancock when enemy aircraft attacked. One plane, aimed at the carrier, overshot and crashed into the destroyer. The impact opened the hull, flooded compartments, and jammed the steering gear. With the rudder useless, Merrill used the engines to keep Halsey Powell from colliding with Hancock, then worked the damaged ship clear while further attacks came in. The crew extinguished the fires. Men of the ship were killed, and more than thirty were wounded. Through 20 and 21 March he kept her afloat and underway until she was clear of enemy waters. The Navy Cross, issued in April 1945, honored the seamanship and resolve with which he saved the destroyer. He recommended twenty-six members of the crew for medals for what they did that day. Halsey Powell reached Ulithi on 25 March and arrived at San Pedro, California, on 8 May for battle repairs.
The yard returned the ship to the Pacific before the fighting ended. On 8 August 1945, off Pearl Harbor, Merrill had Halsey Powell at sea with the submarine Searaven and the destroyer escort Strickland for antisubmarine practice. After Japan gave up, he brought the destroyer into Tokyo Bay. On 2 September 1945 she was among the Allied ships present while the surrender was signed aboard Missouri. For the company that had brought her back from the March crash, that anchorage closed the cruise Merrill had begun off Ulithi the previous autumn. He left Halsey Powell on 30 September 1945.
After the war his work stayed with destroyers and with antisubmarine warfare. He commanded the destroyer Leonard F. Mason. At Key West, as chief staff officer of an antisubmarine development detachment, he argued for stronger armament as the Korean War began. He served as an antisubmarine officer on the Pacific Fleet staff, commanded a destroyer division during a Korean War deployment, and later commanded a destroyer development division. The Naval War College and the antisubmarine office under the Chief of Naval Operations followed. His last command afloat was the destroyer tender Yosemite, flagship of the Atlantic destroyer force. From that ship he set in motion the experimental work that grew into Destroyer Development Group Two. He retired in 1963 as a captain.
Merrill died in Newport, Rhode Island, on 7 January 2010, at the age of ninety-five. The Navy Cross he earned off Japan in March 1945 stood at the center of a career that ran from the Neutrality Patrol to the postwar remaking of the destroyer force.