USS English (DD-696) was launched by Federal Shipbuilding at Kearny on 27 February 1944, sponsored by the daughter of her namesake, Rear Admiral Robert H. English, and commissioned on 4 May 1944. She reached Hawaii on 3 September 1944 and sailed from Pearl Harbor on 17 December for Ulithi, where on 28 December she joined the screen of Task Force 38.
She screened the carriers in strikes on Formosa, Luzon, Okinawa and the coast of Indochina. On 12 January 1945 she mistook the American submarine Rock for a Japanese sailboat in the South China Sea and opened fire at 9,200 yards. Rock dived to 300 feet and was undamaged. She escorted the cruiser Indianapolis to join Task Force 58 and screened the carriers during the Iwo Jima operation and the strikes on Tokyo.
On 19 March 1945 she screened the retirement of the carrier Franklin after the bombing off Kyushu. On 1 April she closed Okinawa to provide gunfire support for the troops. On 11 May she went close alongside Bunker Hill, damaged by a kamikaze, to help fight the fires and to take off Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher and his staff, whom she transferred to another carrier. She then spent a month at San Pedro Bay for repairs and exercises and sailed again with Task Force 38 for the last raids on Japan.
Sources: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) as reproduced on Wikipedia, NavSource Online (commanding officer list), and Wikimedia Commons (photograph record).