At the end of February 1942, the crew of the Meredith was enjoying liberty ashore in Norfolk. Their Destroyer Division 22—consisting of Gwin, Meredith, Grayson, and Monssen—had just been relieved of its six-month deployment operating as part of the North Atlantic convoy duty force off Iceland searching and hunting the German U-boat. Scuttlebutt had it that the Meredith would be leaving the Atlantic Ocean and heading for all points west; more specifically the South Pacific.
On 4 March 1942, Meredith escorted six troop transports loaded with Marines out of Chesapeake Bay. Here she was joined by a formidable task group consisting of carrier Hornet, cruisers Nashville and Vincennes, tanker Cimarron and destroyers Grayson, Gwin, Monssen, Ellyson, Manley, Sturtevant, Stringham, and Stansbury to form Task Force 18. The task force headed south and sailed for the Panama Canal. Rumors immediately began to circulate that this task group was heading to bombard, bomb, and invade a Japanese-held Pacific island. The spirit that prevailed among the crew was one described as, “here we come—let us at ’em.”
After transiting the Panama Canal and entering the Pacific Ocean, the task force split into two groups. While destroyers Stringham, Ellyson, Stansbury, Manley, Sturtevant, and the six Marine transports broke from the main task group, Hornet, Nashville, Vincennes, Meredith, Grayson, Monssen, and Gwin headed north.
Around noon, 12 March, the accidental firing of a torpedo on Meredith wounded three sailors: Louis Massella, Wesley LaDuron, and Joseph Durik. The injured men were transferred to the Hornet for immediate medical attention. Unfortunately, Joseph Durik died the next day and was buried at sea. The task force ships dipped their colors and saluted an apprentice seaman with less then three months service. As a tribute to this sailor who refused all medical attention so that his shipmates might live, DE-666 was named in his honor.
Pulling into San Francisco, Chief Robinson went aboard the Hornet at Naval Air Station, Alameda, to check on the status of his wounded shipmates. While aboard, he saw B-25 bombers being loaded onto the deck. A few minutes later, a bus drove up and began unloading Army Air Force crews to board the Hornet. The next day, 2 April, the task force reformed and headed northwest.
6 April brought about the rescue of Seaman M.T. Haines from the Vincennes, who had been thrown overboard by a plane catapult. 9 April brought about the same type of event as Meredith rescued Seaman P.D. Williams from the oiler Cimarron, who fell overboard during refueling operations. Luckily, no injuries were reported during these two incidents.
On 13 April, the Hornet group sighted a large group of ships, which included the USS Enterprise, cruisers Northampton and Salt Lake City, destroyers Balch, Benham, Ellet, Fanning and oiler Sabine. The two groups formed up together to become Task Force 16. Adhering to radio silence, Task Force 16 steamed northwest. Chief Robinson helped the navigator keep track of the task force course, which was toward Japan. Now the scuttlebutt really flowed with speculation that this could be the first air strike against Japan proper. Morale grew higher and higher as the task force neared its fate with history. Thoughts were directed to the question of how close could we get without being detected A caricature of Tojo was painted on the nose of a torpedo with the phrase “Sap a Jap.”
17 April brought about the splitting of the task force again whereas Hornet, Enterprise, Northampton, Salt Lake City, Vincennes, and Nashville sped at top speed onward for Japan. With the limited cruising range of the destroyers, the oilers and destroyers headed east. 18 April 1942 set its place in history with the successful launching of B-25s from the deck of the carrier Hornet, 400 miles from Japan. Though the group was spotted by a small Japanese vessel, they quickly sank it and attacked Japan under complete surprise. President Roosevelt announced the raid as having been launched from a secret base called “SHANGRI-LA.” The group rejoined together at 0500 on the 19th of April and headed for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
As this was the first time into Pearl for Meredith, there was hardly a dry eye as one looked upon the remains of our battered Pacific fleet.
MARKED FOR REVENGE
Scuttlebutt around the fleet stated that Japan has targeted Hornet, Nashville, Vincennes, Meredith, Monssen, and Grayson for destruction for their participation in the Tokyo raid. Of the original task force that left San Francisco on 2 April 1942, only Grayson and USS Nashville survived the war.
