USS Lansdowne (DD-486) was launched by Federal Shipbuilding at Kearny on 20 February 1942 and commissioned on 29 April 1942. She served on the Atlantic coast and attacked a submarine off Cape Hatteras on 3 July. In July 1942 her attacks off Panama sank the German U-153, as postwar records established. She transited the Panama Canal on 21 August for the South Pacific and joined Task Force 18, built around the carrier Wasp (CV-7).
On 15 September 1942 Wasp was torpedoed by I-19 and set afire. Lansdowne narrowly avoided one of the torpedoes that missed and rescued 447 of the carrier's crew when she was abandoned. Rear Admiral Noyes then ordered her to sink the carrier. Her first two torpedoes, fired with magnetic exploders, produced no result. Her torpedomen disabled the exploders, and the last three torpedoes detonated, but Wasp stayed afloat in a pool of burning fuel until she sank by the bow at 2100. Lansdowne then fought in the Solomons, with a bombardment of landing barges on 30 November 1942, and in the Aleutians, where she shelled Kiska on 6 July 1943.
On 6 June 1944 she joined Task Force 58 for the Marianas operation. She took part in the raids on the Bonins on 15 and 16 June and the Battle of the Philippine Sea on 19 and 20 June. After a refit at Bremerton she was back at Ulithi on 29 October. On 5 May 1945 she went to Okinawa for anti-submarine patrols, fire support and carrier screening, and then operated off Japan with the 3rd Fleet. On 29 August she escorted the battleship South Dakota, Admiral Nimitz's flagship, into Tokyo Bay. On 2 September 1945 she carried the Japanese emissaries from Yokohama to the battleship Missouri to sign the Instrument of Surrender, and returned them to Yokohama the same day.
Sources: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) as reproduced on Wikipedia, NavSource Online (commanding officer list), and Wikimedia Commons (photograph record).