DesRon 10
1945 Operations
The first seven ships in the table at left were built at Bath Iron Works and commissioned between December 1944 and March 1945. The others were built at Consolidated Shipbuilding, Orange, Texas and commissioned between February and April 1945. After commissioning, all were taken in hand at East Coast shipyards and fitted as radar picket destroyers, which delayed their deployment.
The first of them, Frank Knox and Southerland, passed through the Panama Canal and arrived in the Pacific in June 1945. These plus Chevalier, Higbee and Benner earned service stars with the Third Fleet during its final wartime operations in July and August. The remaining seven also reached the war zone before the war ended in September 1945. Had the war continued, these destroyers would doubtless have played prominent roles on radar picket duty.
Excepting ex-DesRon 10 1,630-tonners converted as minesweepers, Southerland was the first United States destroyer to enter Tokyo Bay on 28 August 1945.
