Ships
- USS Albert W. Grant (DD-649) Captain, 24 November 1943 – 1 March 1945
Commander Terrell Andrew Nisewaner of the United States Navy commanded the destroyer Albert W. Grant (DD-649) from 24 November 1943 until 1 March 1945. He was her first commanding officer and took her from commissioning into combat in the Pacific.
Albert W. Grant was a Fletcher-class destroyer, built for fleet escort work with five-inch guns and a full set of torpedo tubes. After she entered service the crew ran trials, practiced gunnery, and moved the ship out to the war.
In 1944 she screened larger ships during the fleet's advance across the central Pacific. That duty carried her to the Philippines in October, when American forces landed on Leyte and the Japanese Navy came out to meet them.
On the night of 24–25 October 1944 a Japanese force of battleships, a heavy cruiser, and destroyers steamed into Surigao Strait from the south, bound for the beachhead. American battleships and cruisers waited across the northern end of the strait, with motor torpedo boats and destroyers stationed ahead of them. Albert W. Grant was one of the destroyers sent in to attack with torpedoes before the heavy ships fired.
She closed the Japanese column in the dark and launched her torpedoes. While she worked clear she lay between the enemy and the American battle line, and shells from both sides struck her. The hits wrecked machinery, cut off power and steering, and started fires. Albert W. Grant stopped dead in the strait. Many of her sailors were killed and many more were wounded, Nisewaner among them. The men who could still work fought the fires and the flooding and kept the destroyer afloat.
After the Japanese column was broken, other ships took Albert W. Grant in tow and brought her out of the strait. Temporary repairs at forward bases, including Manus, were followed by a passage through Pearl Harbor to the Mare Island Navy Yard for a long overhaul. Nisewaner remained in command through the voyage and into that repair period. He left the ship on 1 March 1945.