The second USS Nicholas (DD 449), authorized in 1938 and ordered in 1940, was built at Bath (Maine) Iron Works side-by-side with sister USS O’Bannon—the first two of 175 ships of the 2100-ton Fletcher class laid

NARA photo BS 36871 Nicholas’ builder’s plate, 13 July 1942.

down. Following her construction, launch and trials off Rockland, Maine, the “Nick” was commissioned in Boston on 4 June 1942.
     Arriving in the Pacific in September, she joined the Guadalcanal campaign, which was already in progress. Soon sisters O’Bannon, Fletcher, De Haven, Radford, Jenkins, La Vallette, Chevalier, Strong, and Taylor arrived and in March 1943, the survivors were formed into Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 21. Nicholas was flagship.
     For the next seven months, these ships fought their way up the Solomon Islands chain through many more bombardments and night surface actions, including the Battle of Kula Gulf. Then at the end of October 1943, the squadron was assigned to escort duty for the the Gilbert Islands operation before sailing home to Mare Island Navy Yard for the “Nick’s” only refit of the war.

DATA Name: U.S.S. Nicholas Type: Destroyer Namesake: Marine Major Samuel Nicholas Navy Classification: DD 449 Class: DD 445, Fletcher Authorized: 17 May 1938 Ordered: 28 June 1940 Builder: Bath Iron Works Corp., Bath, Maine Builder’s Hull Number: 190 Keel laid: 3 March 1941 Launched: 19 February 1942 First commissioned: 4 June 1942 Decommissioned: 22 April 1946 Reclassified DDE 449: November 1950 Recommissioned: 19 February 1951 Reclassified DD 449: 7 June 1962 Decommissioned: 30 January 1970 Disposition: Scrapped, Zidell Marine, Portland, Oregon

     In February 1944, Nicholas arrived back in the western Pacific to resume screening convoys and the fleet (sinking two submarines) and bombarding shore positions in New Guinea, the Philippines and Borneo. This duty sometimes kept her at sea for many weeks, to the point where she ran low on food.
     After hostilities ceased on 15 August 1945, Admiral Halsey ordered Nicholas, O'Bannon and Taylor to escort his flagship Missouri into Japanese home waters. On 27 August, Nicholas proceeded ahead of the formation to receive Japanese emissaries, pilots and interpreters. Two days later, she led the Flagship Task Group into Tokyo Bay.
     Nicholas also featured in the events surrounding the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September. Her assignment that day was to transport American and Allied representatives out to Missouri at anchor for the ceremony, which they could see through binoculars. Then, after a month spent repatriating prisoners of war, the “Nick” finally departed for home on 1 October, arriving in Seattle in time for the Navy Day celebration there.

“I am proud to present to you a fitting token of the respect and esteem which this ship, her officers and her men have well earned throughout the Navy,” began Admiral Nimitz in his remarks to the crew at Nicholas‘s Presidential Unit Citation ceremony on 28 January 1944. For her action in 1943, she was one of the first ships to be presented this high honor.      “To say the record speaks for itself is not enough,” he continued. “In this case the record of the Nicholas is in a sense the record of one entire phase of the Pacific war.”      Much the same was true of other ships of the squadron of which Nicholas was flagship. It including the lead ship of her class (Fletcher), two other individual Presidential Unit Citation winners (Radford and O’Bannon), a Naval Unit Commendation recipient (Taylor) and four of the nine destroyers that earned fifteen or more battle stars in World War II (O’Bannon, Nicholas, Fletcher and Taylor).      Admiral Halsey also acknowledged the “Nick.” As the war’s end approached, he directed that she and O’Bannon be present in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender. En route, she proceeded ahead of the formation approaching Japan to receive emissaries and pilots for distribution among the fleet, led the Flagship Task Group into Tokyo Bay, and later transported Allied and American representatives to and from the surrender ceremony aboard Missouri.      By this time, Nicholas had earned sixteen battle stars, a total surpassed only by O’Bannon, and her thirty stars through three wars is the highest total for any US Navy ship.      Thanks to circumstances such as these, the “Nick” also emerged as one of the most photographed destroyers of World War II, with more than 300 images taken of or from her preserved at the National Archives and at least another 300 in private collections.

     Converted and then recommissioned as an escort destroyer (DDE) in 1951, she served thereafter off Korea and in continued deployments to the western Pacific.
     Over seven months in 1959–60, she received a FRAM II conversion at Pearl Harbor, one of only three Fletchers (with Radford and Jenkins) to receive this modification.
     Thereafter, she served with the “Pineapple Fleet” and was maintained there, returning to the West Coast only once.
   Following a joint 25th birthday celebration with Fletcher, she completed a total of 14 Western Pacific deployments, including service in the Tonkin Gulf and with the recovery task forces for the Apollo 8 and 9 space missions.
     Nicholas was fast, even among sister ships, throughout her lifetime. She achieved 37.1 knots at 2,589 tons during her builder’s trials (source: Friedman, p118), over 36 knots on one occasion after more than a year at sea (source: 6 July 1943 deck log). She may have been even faster after her FRAM conversion.
     Finally in 1970, having become the navy’s oldest active destroyer, the “Nick” was decommissioned in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor (again side-by-side with O’Bannon), stricken from the Navy List, towed to Portland, Oregon, and then broken up in 1972. At the time she was retired, only seven other Fletcher-class ships remained in service with the US Navy.
     An estimated 4,000 officers and men served in her during her nearly 28-year career.

The ship looked the part that she was—“The Mistress of the Sea.” Destroyers Pacific, 28 January 1944