Dennis (DE-405) was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort. She was named for Radioman Third Class Otis Lee Dennis, killed as an aerial gunner in the Kwajalein raid on 1 February 1942. Brown Shipbuilding in Houston laid her down on 15 September 1943, launched her on 4 December 1943, and commissioned her on 20 March 1944 under Lieutenant Commander Sigurd Hansen, USNR. She was a little different from most of the class: a quadruple 40 mm and a twin 40 mm instead of two twins. The portrait is the Navy photograph off Boston on 20 May 1944, hull 405 on the bow.
After shakedown she went out through the Panama Canal in late May 1944, escorted to Pearl Harbor, then Eniwetok and Manus, and screened the escort carriers for the Morotai landings in September. From 12 October she was with the carriers covering the Leyte invasion.
On the morning of 25 October she was the last escort between the destroyer screen and the carriers when Kurita's force came out of the squall. She laid smoke and fought. A shell hit at frame 35 and passed through the ship, flooding the ordnance storeroom. The shell is not pinned to one Japanese ship. Plates were welded inside the hull overnight, and the next morning she could make speed again. She then picked up 434 survivors from St. Lo, sunk by a kamikaze after the gun action. She shared the Presidential Unit Citation given to TU 77.4.3. Popular accounts sometimes credit her with torpedoing a heavy cruiser. No such hit is credited to her. She stayed with the carriers that got out.
She reached Kossol Roads on 28 October and San Francisco on 26 November for overhaul. In 1945 she patrolled off Iwo Jima, escorted back to Ulithi, did lifeguard work for Sangamon off Okinawa, stood radar picket off Ulithi, and finished the war on convoy duty between Ulithi, Okinawa, the Philippines, and New Guinea. She was decommissioned at San Diego on 31 May 1946, stricken on 1 December 1972, and sold for scrap on 12 September 1973. Four battle stars, plus the Presidential Unit Citation.