USS Burns (DD-588) was a Fletcher-class destroyer. She was launched on 8 August 1942 and commissioned on 3 April 1943, with Donald Temple Eller as her captain. On 17 September 1943 she reached Pearl Harbor and spent the following weeks in training before a long run of Pacific duty.
From October 1943 until July 1945 she served as an anti-submarine escort, a picket, a fighter-director ship, and a ship that recovered airmen from the water. February through April 1945 she spent in a yard in the United States. Early on she was in the Wake Island raid of 5–6 October 1943, the Gilbert Islands campaign from 20 November to 8 December 1943, and the occupation of Kwajalein and Majuro from 29 January to 8 February 1944.
On 30 January 1944, after three downed American aviators had been brought aboard, Burns was off Ujae Atoll heading back toward her task group when she found a small Japanese convoy. In thirty-four minutes she sank all four ships: a small freighter, a medium tanker, and two smaller vessels that were either cargo ships or escorts. On 17 February, during the raid on Truk of 16–17 February, she fought with Task Group 50.9 in a surface action off Truk in the Carolines. She helped sink Katori at 07°45' N, 151°20' E and a trawler, then was sent to finish CH-24. That was done at 1655 in 07°24' N, 150°30' E, and six Japanese survivors were taken from the sea.
That spring she covered the strikes on Palau, Yap, Ulithi, and Woleai from 30 March to 1 April, the Hollandia operation of 21–24 April, and the raid on Truk, Satawan, and Ponape from 29 April to 1 May. From 15 June to 6 August she was in the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, which included four raids on the Bonins, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the battles for Saipan and Guam, and a raid against Palau, Yap, and Ulithi. Jacob Thompson Bullen became captain on 28 July 1944 while that campaign was still going.
From 6 September to 14 October she took part in the western Carolines operation, including seizure of the Palaus in the south and assaults directed at the Philippines. Leyte operations ran from 10 October to 14 November, when the Third Fleet’s supporting strikes reached toward Okinawa, Luzon, and Formosa. She was with the Lingayen Gulf landings from 4 to 18 January 1945. After the yard period she returned for the Borneo operations of 7 June to 7 July, among them Brunei Bay and Balikpapan. Heyden Forbes Wells took command on 4 August 1945.
When the fighting ended, Burns stayed in the Far East on occupation duty into December 1945 and operated in the Yellow Sea while Korea and China were being occupied. She sailed from the western Pacific on 29 December 1945 and entered San Francisco on 8 January 1946. Assigned to the 19th Fleet to be inactivated, she was decommissioned and placed in reserve at San Diego on 25 June 1946. Eleven battle stars marked her wartime service. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 1 November 1972 and sunk as a target on 20 June 1974.