USS Zellars (DD-777) was launched by Todd-Pacific at Seattle on 19 July 1944 and commissioned on 25 October 1944. After shakedown out of San Diego and post-shakedown availability at Bremerton she went to Pearl Harbor for training and sailed in mid-March 1945 with part of the Okinawa invasion force.
She was assigned to Task Group 54.3 of Rear Admiral Deyo's gunfire and covering force, built around the old battleships, and arrived in the Ryukyus on 25 March. She supported the occupation of Kerama Retto and then the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa, but her 5-inch guns usually deferred to the battleships and cruisers while she gave them antisubmarine and antiaircraft protection.
On the afternoon of 12 April 1945 she was screening the battleship Tennessee when three Japanese 'Jill' torpedo bombers attacked from her port quarter, about 15 feet above the water. She went to 25 knots and shot down the first two. The third crashed into her port side forward of the bridge, and its 500-kilogram bomb exploded on the starboard side. She lost power for a time. She reached Kerama Retto that evening with extensive damage. Twenty-nine men were killed and 37 wounded. After temporary repairs she reached Terminal Island, California, on 1 June 1945.
Sources: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) as reproduced on Wikipedia, NavSource Online (commanding officer list), and Wikimedia Commons (photograph record).
