Pacific ships

Photos and the story

Ellet

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ClassBenham class
TypeDestroyer (DD)
HullDD-398
FateAfloat. Screened Enterprise and Hornet at Midway. Not in the night fight at Savo Island. The next morning she and Selfridge sank the abandoned Canberra. Repairing at Mare Island when the war ended. Decommissioned there on 29 October 1945. Sold on 1 August 1947.
Armament (class)Four 5-inch guns, one funnel, and sixteen torpedo tubes.
Command

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

Ellet
U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 81176. USS Ellet (DD-398) underway off New York City, in 1939 (NH 81176).jpg. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

USS Ellet (DD-398) was a Benham-class destroyer of the United States Navy. She was a fleet destroyer, and the duty that marks her in the Pacific was the work of a ship kept with larger vessels.

F. J. Mee became her captain on 17 February 1939. From that day he is the officer named in command of the destroyer.

On 4 June 1942, at the Battle of Midway, Ellet was in Spruance's screen. She screened Enterprise and Hornet.

At the Battle of Savo Island on 9 August 1942, she was not in the night fight. The next morning she and Selfridge sank the abandoned Canberra, the two ships carrying out that scuttling together. Ellet survived the war. When the fighting ended she was at Mare Island, undergoing repair. The Navy decommissioned her there on 29 October 1945. She was sold on 1 August 1947.

The pictures on this page are the originals.