USS Nicholas (DD-449) was named for Major Samuel Nicholas, the first commandant of the Marine Corps. An earlier destroyer had carried the name and been lost. This one was DD-449. Bath Iron Works laid her down on 3 March 1941, on the building way next to O'Bannon. Those two hulls were the first Fletchers started. They were launched the same day, 19 February 1942. Nicholas was commissioned at Boston on 4 June 1942, Lieutenant Commander William D. Brown in command, before any other ship of the class.
The Fletcher was the destroyer the Pacific war was fought with. About 2,100 tons, five 5-inch guns, ten torpedo tubes. One hundred seventy-five of them were built.
On the night of 6 July 1943 she led the American column into Kula Gulf, between Kolombangara and New Georgia. O'Bannon was beside her. Astern came Honolulu, Helena, and St. Louis, and then Jenkins and Radford. Rear Admiral Walden L. Ainsworth flew his flag in Honolulu.
Rear Admiral Teruo Akiyama was bringing ten destroyers down to land troops at Vila. His support group was Niizuki, Suzukaze, and Tanikaze, and his flag was in Niizuki. The American guns sank Niizuki. Akiyama was lost with her. That sinking is not credited to one ship.
Helena's own gun flashes lit her against the dark. Suzukaze and Tanikaze launched the torpedoes and turned away. Three of them hit Helena. The hit is not pinned to one of those two destroyers. The first tore her bow off. She broke up and sank. Captain Charles P. Cecil had her. He survived.
Nicholas and Radford stayed. They broke off the rescue three times to fight. Nicholas took 291 of Helena's men aboard. Together the two destroyers got more than 700 off. O'Bannon had been in the van with her. O'Bannon was not a rescue ship that night.
Before dawn Nicholas traded shots with Amagiri, which had come back through the gulf looking for Niizuki's men. The torpedoes missed. Amagiri took more hits in that exchange and got away. The hits she had taken earlier in the night are not credited to one ship.
A later party of Helena's survivors reached Vella Lavella and was brought out on 16 July. Nicholas was only in the covering force for that pickup.
On 18 August she led Captain Ryan's division off Horaniu, on the north coast of Vella Lavella. O'Bannon, Taylor, and Chevalier were with her. Four Japanese destroyers were covering barges bound for the beach. Torpedoes from both sides missed. Shigure's torpedoes missed the American ships. Chevalier fired four at Shigure from about 9,000 yards, and those missed too. Gunfire from Ryan's destroyers nicked Hamakaze and put one 5-inch shell into Isokaze. Those hits are not pinned to Nicholas alone. She was undamaged. Most of the barges still landed their troops.
At the end of the war Admiral Halsey sent Nicholas, O'Bannon, and Taylor to bring Missouri into Tokyo Bay. O'Bannon sailed for home on 1 September 1945. Nicholas stayed. On 2 September she carried Allied representatives from Yokohama out to Missouri. The signing was on the battleship.
She received the Presidential Unit Citation for Kula Gulf. Radford was cited with her. Nicholas was sold for scrap in October 1970.
