Inter-War Period

USS Anderson on 18 May 1939, just before commissioning.

Anderson was the first of the Sims class to be delivered in early 1939, and was found to be 150 tons overweight and dangerously top-heavy due to insufficient metacentric height. This touched off a redesign and rebuilding of the class, completed during 1941. One 5-inch gun (No. 3) and one quad torpedo tube mount were removed, with another torpedo tube mount relocated to the centerline.^[1] It was determined that an underestimate by the Bureau of Engineering of the weight of a new machinery design was responsible and that the Bureau of Construction and Repair did not have sufficient authority to detect or correct the error during the design process. This eventually led to the consolidation of the previous bureaus into the new Bureau of Ships on 20 June 1940.^[2]

After commissioning, Anderson remained at the New York Navy Yard through June, fitting out, during which time she contributed a landing party of sailors to march in the New York City Flag Day parade on 14 June 1939. Underway from her berth on 5 July, Anderson reached Newport, Rhode Island, on 7 July, mooring to the east dock at the Naval Torpedo Station, and taking on board torpedo warheads, exploders, and test equipment before returning to the New York Navy Yard the next day, pausing there only briefly before getting underway later that afternoon for Washington, D.C.

Anchoring off Quantico on the night of 9 July, Anderson steamed up the Potomac River, rendering the prescribed passing honors abeam of Mount Vernon, and arrived at the Washington Navy Yard at 0721 on 10 July. The next day, a number of high-ranking officers informally inspected the new destroyer, the first of the Sims-class to be placed in commission, Admiral Harold R. Stark, the Chief of Naval Operations, accompanied by Captain H. T. Markland; Rear Admirals Robert L. Ghormley, Director of War Plans, and William R. Furlong, Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, as well as Charles Edison, the Acting Secretary of the Navy.

On 12 July, assisted by Tecumseh and Undaunted, Anderson got underway for Yorktown, Virginia. She loaded depth charges at the mine depot at Yorktown before moving to the Naval Operating Base (NOB) at Norfolk before getting underway on 14 July for Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington was the hometown of the man for whom the ship had been named, Admiral Anderson; and it accorded the ship a warm welcome. The local paper editorialized: "It is a pleasure to have you in port and to inspect the magnificent new destroyer named in honor of a distinguished son. The ship and its personnel are a credit to the record and memory of the man for whom your ship is named... Therefore, we bid you welcome, and if there is aught that can add to your entertainment while here, you have but to ask any resident and it is yours..." Anderson gave a tea for Mrs. Anderson, members of the late flag officer's family, and the city officials of Wilmington on the afternoon of 17 July. On the next day, assisted out into the stream by the tug Battler, the destroyer made a departure from Wilmington.

Reaching NOB, Norfolk, on 19 July, Anderson shifted to the Norfolk Navy Yard that same day to take onboard ammunition. After embarking six enlisted Marines for transportation to the Marine Barracks at Guantanamo Bay, Anderson got underway on 21 July for Cuban waters and the initial part of her shakedown cruise. Arriving at Guantanamo on 24 July, the destroyer disembarked her passengers before operating locally over the next few days.

Anderson then visited San Juan, Puerto Rico (from 1–5 August); Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone (8–14 August); and Hamilton, Bermuda (19–21 August); St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (25–28 August); before she reached Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on the morning of 31 August. Underway on 5 September, the destroyer called briefly at Quebec (5 to 6 September) before she headed for Newport. On 8 September, while en route, Anderson sighted a merchantman eight miles (13 km) distant, identifying her as Norwegian by the display of national colors on ship's side. Soon thereafter, a plane, identified as "British" (possibly Royal Canadian Air Force) by the wing markings, circled Anderson at low altitude, obviously scrutinizing the ship thoroughly before banking away and heading for the coast.

Anderson made arrival at the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport the following day, 9 September, and over the next few days served as the underway "target" for torpedo practice conducted by Jouett on the testing range in Narragansett Bay. On 16 September, Anderson arrived back at the New York Navy Yard, her shakedown completed, for the installation of her main battery director. After brief periods underway for testing fire control equipment (21–22 September), Anderson took a departure from New York for NOB, Norfolk, arriving on 24 September.

Anderson conducted gunnery exercises on the Southern Drill Grounds off the Virginia Capes, firing at a target towed by Acushnet on 26 September before firing antiaircraft battery practice on 28 September. She arrived at the New York Navy Yard for post-shakedown availability on the morning of 1 October; these repairs and alterations continuing through the end of January 1940.

The destroyer then touched briefly at the Boston Navy Yard before she ran her final acceptance trials off Rockland, Maine, on 7 February 1940, with Rear Admiral H. L. Brinser, president of the Board of Inspection and Survey, embarked. Anderson then paid a return visit to the Boston Navy Yard on 9 February before returning to New York, via the Cape Cod Canal, Buzzards Bay and Oyster Bay, on 12 February.

Anderson remained at the Navy Yard through the end of March, after which time she sailed for Newport, for torpedo firing tests on 10 April. At 1130 on 12 April, the destroyer embarked the Honorable John Z. Anderson, a California Congressman and member of the House Naval Affairs Committee, and got underway shortly thereafter, reaching NOB, Norfolk, and mooring to Pier 7, at 2008 the following day, disembarking her passenger the next morning.

Underway in company with Manley, Anderson stood out, headed for Guantanamo Bay, on the afternoon of 15 April. The next day, 14 hours out of Norfolk, the ships ran into heavy weather. At 0440 on 16 April, the strongback of the port lifeboat was reported to be cracked. Lieutenant George R. Phelan, the executive officer, gathered men of the deck force in the lee of the galley, amidships, as the ship steered various courses in an attempt to lessen the roll and thereby facilitate efforts to secure the port lifeboat. Between rolls, Lieutenant Phelan and his men attempted to recover the boat and make it fast, but the effort soon became too dangerous, not worth the lives of the men, and the work had to be abandoned, the boat carrying away completely at 0718. Ultimately, Anderson reached Guantanamo Bay at 0618 on 19 April.

Underway again nine hours later, Anderson, again in company with Manley, reached the submarine base at Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone, on 21 April. Transiting the Panama Canal on 23 April, Anderson proceeded independently up the west coast of Central America, reaching Acapulco, Mexico, on the 27th. The next morning, following by nine hours the visit of Commander W. M. Dillon, the naval attaché at the United States Embassy in Mexico City, Anderson sent ashore a working party to bring off "naval stores salvaged from the wreck" of Timber Rush (listed in the 1941 Merchant Vessel Register as "abandoned" during the previous year). Underway again four hours later, Anderson rejoined Manley on 30 April, and reached San Diego at 0900 on 1 May 1940.

After conducting a brief harbor cruise with 85 Army reservists embarked on 18 May, Anderson got underway to conduct a neutrality patrol off the coast of southern California. During the course of this operation on 20 May, the destroyer sighted a tug five miles (8 km) away at 0945 and altered course to close and investigate. Closer examination revealed Ray P. Clark, towing a barge laden with horses and bales of hay and flying a distress signal. Anderson immediately called away her fire and rescue party and stopped to render assistance, help which turned out to be only giving directions to the tug which had become lost and needed the course to San Nicolas Island. The assistance duly rendered, Anderson continued on her appointed rounds, arriving back at San Diego on the morning of 23 May.

The warship commenced the month of June as plane guard for Yorktown, as that carrier conducted local operations out of North Island; she later planeguarded for Enterprise from 19 to 21 June, interspersed with type training and gunnery practices out of Pyramid Cove, San Clemente Island. At 0900 on 22 June, as the ship prepared to sail for Hawaiian waters, Commander Allan E. Smith reported on board and broke his pennant in Anderson as Commander, Destroyer Division 3 (DesDiv 3); Anderson subsequently took a departure from San Diego on the morning of 25 June, sailing in company with Enterprise and Hammann, Mustin, Sterett, Hopkins and Rowan.

During the passage to Hawaii, Anderson alternated with the other destroyers in standing plane guard duty for Enterprise and then serving as an antisubmarine screen. On 28 June, during morning flight operations, a plane from Scouting Squadron (VS) 6 lost power after being catapulted from the flight deck and was forced to ditch. Hammann arrived on the scene first and rescued the pilot and his radioman, Enterprise later drew alongside the plane and recovered it. Subsequently, Anderson covered the arrival of the force at Pearl Harbor and then followed it in, mooring on the morning of 2 July.

For the next five months, Anderson operated locally put of Pearl Harbor and Lahaina Roads. Her operations within the Hawaiian chain took her to Palmyra (22 July) and Christmas Island (23 July); and included such evolutions as antiaircraft and machine gun practices; battle depth charge practices, and torpedo practices, often operating in company with destroyers, light cruisers, and battleships. Interspersed were periods of upkeep back at Pearl Harbor alongside Altair between 26 and 28 October, and drydocking (28 to 29 October and again from 30 October to 4 November). The ship also patrolled assigned areas adjacent to the Lahaina Roads anchorage, off Maui, and off Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, intercepting and identifying many merchantmen, and local craft, such as fishing boats, as well as noting the movements of American warships. Following this intensive period of operations in Hawaiian waters, Anderson took a departure from Pearl Harbor on 2 December 1940, bound for the West Coast in company with the rest of Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 8.

Arriving at San Diego on the afternoon of 8 December, Anderson steamed to the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, San Pedro, Los Angeles, the day after Christmas, and underwent an overhaul there through the first week of January 1941. Then, after operating locally out of Long Beach and San Diego, Anderson took a departure from San Diego on the morning of 14 January and rendezvoused with Enterprise and Lexington off San Pedro. The force conducted drills and exercises en route to the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Pearl Harbor on the morning of 21 January.

Anderson resumed operations in the Hawaiian area on 12 February, conducting such evolutions as depth charge practices, night battle practice runs, and gunnery drills, until returning to Pearl Harbor on 19 February. Underway again two days later she conducted more gunnery runs and damage control problems before returning to port that afternoon to provision from the storeship Arctic. Underway again on the morning of 22 February, Anderson patrolled off the entrance to Pearl Harbor and encountered a fishing craft trespassing in a security zone; lowering her motor whaleboat, Anderson investigated the craft and warned her owner to keep away from those waters. Anderson returned to Pearl Harbor the next morning, 23 February, before resuming the intensive schedule of operations with the other ships in her division that lasted through the end of February.

During March 1941, Anderson continued the rapid pace of operations out of Pearl Harbor, operating with the fleet and honing her skills in antisubmarine warfare tactics and in gunnery. She also operated for a time with Yorktown as plane guard. During flight operations on the morning of 17 March 1941, two TBD Devastators from Torpedo Squadron 5 collided at 1,000 feet (300 metres) and crashed into the sea, 2,500 yards (2.3 km) from the carrier. Yorktown's boats recovered the bodies of the pilots, but both planes sank in 2,910 fathoms (5,320 m) of water, carrying the other four men – two in each aircraft – with them. Anderson – detailed to remain in the vicinity and continue the search – found only small parts of the planes and pieces of clothing.

These evolutions in Hawaiian waters proved to be the last for some time; Anderson got underway for the West Coast of the United States shortly after noon on 24 March, and reached Mare Island Navy Yard on the last day of the month after first disembarking, at San Francisco, enlisted passengers transported from Pearl Harbor. The destroyer spent all of April 1941 undergoing repairs and alterations at the West Coast yard, and on 16 May got underway for her post-repair trials.

After operating briefly in San Francisco Bay, Anderson shifted to Long Beach on 21 May, and eight days later, took a departure, ostensibly, for the Hawaiian Islands, in company with her division mates, Hammann, Mustin, and Rowan. The ships soon received a change of orders. They rendezvoused with Philadelphia on the afternoon of 30 May, and soon proceeded down the coast, bound for Panama, as another increment of the Pacific Fleet was withdrawn to augment the Atlantic Fleet in its undeclared war with the German Navy in the Atlantic.

Atlantic Neutrality Patrols

Transiting the Panama Canal on the night of 8–9 June, Anderson, her hull number and name painted out for security reasons, passed the Cristobal breakwater at 0125 on 9 June, en route to Guantanamo Bay. Fueling there on 11 June, Anderson got underway the same afternoon, quickly taking up antisubmarine screening station off the port bow of Idaho, which she escorted up the eastern seaboard to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, arriving there on 15 June.

The respite in port proved brief, however, since Anderson took a departure early on the morning of 19 June. Joined by Rowan shortly thereafter, the destroyer stood down the Delaware River, and out into the Atlantic. They joined Tuscaloosa the following morning, and, later, Wasp shortly after noon on 21 June.

Together, these ships proceeded out into the central Atlantic on neutrality patrol, cruising almost as far as the Cape Verde Islands, "safeguarding the neutrality of the United States." Their voyage took them almost to the edge of the zones defined in operations orders of April and June 1941. Anderson served as plane guard for Wasp and as an antisubmarine screen for the carrier and for Tuscaloosa during the patrol that ultimately came to an end at Bermuda on Independence Day, 1941.

After a brief period in Bermudan waters, a break she utilized for a short stint of close-range battle practice, Anderson took a departure on 12 July for Norfolk, reaching her destination the following day. After getting underway from the Tidewater region for torpedo practice on 17 July, the warship sailed north for Boston, and reached the Boston Navy Yard on the afternoon of 19 July.

Anderson then underwent repairs and alterations into early August; during her time in the yard, her number three 5 inch (127 mm) mount was removed to save topside weight and allow the fitting of additional .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns, extensions to her depth charge tracks, and a "Y"-gun (depth charge projector), in addition to two dozen additional depth charges. Thus refitted to better perform the escort role needed in the developing Battle of the Atlantic, she participated in intensive antisubmarine exercises out of Provincetown, Massachusetts, during the latter half of August 1941 before returning to Boston on the 30th. Anderson's operations now carried her farther north, as she sailed for Casco Bay, Maine, on 2 September, exercising with Tuscaloosa en route.

Assigned to Task Force 15 (TF 15), Anderson steamed as part of the escort force for the first major reinforcement convoy bound for Iceland, carrying an Army brigade to augment the Marines who had been there since July. The ships reached Reykjavík on the evening of 15 September after a passage enlivened by two "submarine" contacts in Anderson's vicinity: one summarily depth-charged by Walke on 8 September, the other by Hilary P. Jones on the 10th. Then, between 26 September and 3 October, Anderson escorted a convoy to Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.

Anderson remained at Placentia Bay for almost a week before getting underway on 10 October as part of the antisubmarine screen for TF 14, formed around Yorktown. This force reached Casco Bay, Maine, on the afternoon of 13 October. Moving down to Provincetown, Anderson again conducted antisubmarine exercises, and as in previous practices, the ship's performance was "outstanding in detecting the presence of a submarine and carrying out a successful attack." Later, after a tender availability alongside Denebola at Casco Bay, she resumed her operations at sea with TF 14.

Standing out of Casco Bay on the afternoon of 26 October, with Task Group 14.3 (TG 14.3), Savannah, Philadelphia, New Mexico, Yorktown, and seven destroyers as the escort for a convoy of six British cargo ships bound for the British Isles, Anderson, in the inner anti-submarine screen, plane guarded for the carrier as she conducted flight operations covering the convoy as it moved out into the Atlantic.

On 30 October, 700 mi (1,100 km) from St. John's, Newfoundland, Yorktown had just completed recovering planes and was proceeding to refuel Sims when, at 1219, Anderson made an underwater contact, 1,300 yards (1,200 m) distant. Anderson went to general quarters immediately and proceeded ahead to develop the contact dropping a standard pattern of six depth charges at 1225. Five minutes later, Morris dropped an "embarrassing barrage". Other ships in the vicinity, however, began sighting porpoises and blackfish, leading Commander Frank G. Fahrion, Commander, DesDiv 3 in Anderson, to report over the high-frequency radio (TBS) to Morris that, in view of the fish sightings, the contact was a false one.

Soon thereafter, however, Anderson's men saw an oil slick and lowered a bucket that, when drawn up, contained a mixture of oil, water, and burnt TNT. At 1305, the destroyer picked up a propeller noise and attacked with a second pattern of six depth charges. Soon thereafter, Hughes, also in on the "hunt", picked up a contact and requested Anderson to develop it. The latter dropped another pattern in 1409.

Anderson secured from general quarters at 1421, and then, in company with Hughes, tried to develop further contacts or to obtain concrete evidence of a "kill." Unfortunately, it appeared that their quarry had escaped.

After securing from the search at 1503, Anderson remained with TF 14 until detached on 6 November. At 1637 on that same day, while steaming in company with Hammann, Anderson sighted an unidentified ship which instituted radical course changes when she apparently sighted the two American destroyers. As Hammann parted company, Anderson investigated the stranger, finding her to be Trondheim, steaming singly from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The destroyer then trailed the tanker for a time until securing from the effort at 2246.

Reaching Hvalfjörður on 7 November and fueling from Sapelo upon arrival, Anderson then spent the next month operating in Icelandic waters, out of Hvalfjörður ("Valley Forge") and Reykjavík ("Rinky Dink"). The ship's last "peacetime" operations consisted of a sweep, in company with Idaho and Mississippi from Reykjavík across the southern end of the Denmark Strait, between Iceland and Greenland, between 1 and 6 December 1941.

World War II

Post-War