USS CASSIN YOUNG
One of the finest destroyer designs produced was the famed Fletcher-class of which USS Cassin Young is one of just four that survive today.
Built by Bethlehem Shipbuilding at San Pedro in California she commissioned into service on the last day of 1943. For almost two years she was in the thick of the fighting in the Pacific playing a significant role in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Battle of Okinawa and the Battle of Cape Engano, during which four Japanese aircraft carriers and a destroyer were sunk.
The threat of kamikaze attacks was ever present in the closing stages of the war and on 6 April 1945, she rescued the survivors from two other destroyers that had been sunk. Six-days later it was her turn to experience the terror of the suicide attacks when after destroying five attackers, a sixth got through and smashed into her foremast and exploded 50 feet above the ship. The kamikaze’s kept coming for the Cassin Young when she was struck for the second time on 29 July on her starboard side.
She decommissioned on 28 May 1946 at San Diego and would remain there until refitted for the Korean War. By the time her refit was completed, the Korean War was nearly at its end, so Cassin Young spent time in the Caribbean and Mediterranean before starting a world cruise. She remained active until early 1960 when a fault with her rudder was uncovered which was determined to be uneconomic to repair.
Retained in reserve at Philadelphia she was finally struck on 1 December 1974 and loaned to the National Park
