"A Shot for Posterity -- The USS Ward's number three gun and its crew-cited for firing the first shot the day of Japan's raid on Hawaii. Operating as part of the inshore patrol early in the morning of December 7, 1941, this destroyer group spotted a submarine outside Pearl Harbor, opened fire and sank her. Crew members are R.H. Knapp - BM2c - Gun Captain, C.W. Fenton - Sea1c - Pointer, R.B. Nolde - Sea1c - Trainer, A.A. De Demagall - Sea1c - No. 1 Loader, D.W. Gruening - Sea1c - No. 2 Loader, J.A. Paick - Sea1c - No. 3 Loader, H.P. Flanagan - Sea1c - No. 4 Loader, E.J. Bakret - GM3c - Gunners Mate, K.C.J. Lasch - Cox - Sightsetter." (quoted from the original 1942-vintage caption)
This gun is a 4"/50 type, mounted atop the ship's midships deckhouse, starboard side.
She was one of hundreds. Numbering two-hundred and seventy three, the flush-deck destroyers were built during World War One and the years immediately following in shipyards all over the United States. They served the US Navy for many years and despite their age by the time World War Two neared they were still in service and many more were being returned to service after decades spent sleeping in the mothballed fleets. The flush-deck four stack destroyers were already a type of ship considered to be a jack of all trades, but they would push this definition farther, becoming minelayers, seaplane tenders, and troop transports while retaining their destroyer heritage and missions. From the beginning the USS Ward was a ship that was destined to be special. Long before she fired the first US shots of WWII, the USS Ward took part in the first transatlantic airplane flight when she served with other destroyers as guides for the aircraft, and before that she set a record that stands still, being launched a mere 17 and a half days after the shipyard began to build her.
In early 1940 Japanese Admiral Yamamoto began to mull over the possibility of attacking the US fleet in Pearl Harbor. Yamamoto did not believe it was possible for Japan to win a war against the United States, but if she did have to go to war, the first step would be an attack to wipe out the US fleet so that it would not be able to block Japanese operations. Although not ordered to plan for war, Yamamoto began to assemble a staff to plan the raid. By mid 1941 most of the ideas were in place. However, mere months before the daring air raid was to happen it was decided to add submarines into the attacking forces. Spearheading this would be five tiny "Type A" mini subs, each eighty feet long and armed with two torpedoes.
In late November escalating tensions and aggressive Japanese behavior led the US Government to issue a "War Warning" to certain US Forces. Admiral Kimmel, (CINCPAC) was one of those notified, and in response the Inshore Patrol command was given the order to attack unknown submarines found within the approach zones to Pearl.
On December 5th Lieutenant William Outerbridge took command from Lieutenant Commander Hunter Wood Jr, who had commanded the Ward since her reactivation. The next day, the Ward left her anchorage at berth X-5 for a weekend patrol of the approaches to the Harbor. Originally the USS Chew (Seen HERE moored with the Ward in July of that year) was slated for duty but a mechanical difficulty forced her to return to base and the Ward was sent out in her place. Like other days before her, December 6th passed by eventlessly and she patrolled into the night. No one knew of the Japanese forces approaching from the North or the submarines that lay in wait around the islands. Between 0042 and 0333 that night, as the Ward quietly made her figure 8's at the mouth to the channel, one of five japanese submarine mother ships launched what has been identified as Midget A, whose mission was to sneak into Pearl Harbor and attack the warships inside or attack them as they came out the channel.
Early the next morning two mine sweepers, the USS Condor AMC-14 and the USS Crossbill AMC-9 headed out from the harbor to begin their daily sweep for mines. At 0342 a crew member of the Condor spotted a suspicious object in the water about 150 feet away. He and another crew member watched it for a couple minutes before deciding it was a submarine conning tower and veering the ship away to avoid a collision. By this point it was after 0400, and the Ward received a blinker signal from the Condor stating "Have sighted submerged submarine on westerly course, speed 9 knots."
General Quarters was called and the Ward raced to the scene but nothing was found. This was partially due to the fact that Condor's transmission indicated the submarine was heading in a westerly direction, where in fact the sub had turned in a westerly direction to avoid the Condor. Additionally, due to the Condor's mine sweeping equipment, which streamed out behind the ship, the Ward was limited in where she could search. By the time the confusion was settled over an hour and a half had passed since the initial contact and there was no point in searching further. The Ward had already secured from General Quarters at 0430 after a half hour of fruitless searching.
Things remained quiet until the USS Antares AKS-3 hove into view; she was a supply ship with a 500-ton steel barge in tow. The Antares was steaming in from Palmyra to meet the tug USS Keosanqua to transfer her tow to her. The Keosanqua was running late, however, the Antares slowed down to wait for the tug's arrival, making a slow turn towards the harbor entrance.
About that time a lookout on the Ward, Seaman Ambrose Domagall, spotted a suspicious object near the Antares. The bridge crew examine the object but held different opinions as to what and where it was. Lt JG Goepner, who was the Officer of the Deck (OOD), ordered the Ward to come to starboard to close in on the object for a better look. As she closed in the crew could see that the object was small and moving towards the harbor at a fast rate. Lt Outerbridge was called from his makeshift bunk in the chartroom just as a message came in from the Antares stating that they'd seen a suspicious object in their wake.
The OOD quickly explained what was happening, and Outerbridge quickly called for General Quarter again. "General Quarters! General Quarters! All hands man your battle stations. Man all guns. Prepare depth charges. Prepare to ram," rang out over the ship's PA system. The USS Ward again leapt into action. About this time a PBY-5 from VP-14 arrived overhead and spotted the midget submarine. Thinking it was a US sub in distress and seeing the Ward charging in, the aircraft dropped two smoke floats to mark the position. The ship turned to a course of 125 true to intercept the submersible and increased her speed up to 20 knots. Outerbridge had second thoughts about ramming the submarine with an old, thin-skinned destroyer however and changed course quickly to 110 to head off the submarine and give her depth charges a perfect plot.
At 0645 the first shots of the Pacific War were fired by the number one gun as the midget sub was taken under fire. The course change that the captain had just ordered caused the ship to roll and bounce faster than the old guns on the destroyer could compensate for and the first round sailed just over the conning tower of the submarine. The Ward's speed had her past the submarine before the gun crew could fire again. By this time however the number three gun crew on the starboard side of the ship had a perfect shot and opened fire. This round flew true and hit the small submersible at the base of the conning tower. Midget A heeled over with a jagged hole in her sail before righting herself and beginning to submerge.
As the submarine wallowed deeper in the water the Ward passed close and with four blasts from the ship's whistle, dropped four depth charges directly in the path of the wounded submarine. The depth charges were set to explode at only one-hundred feet and they soon exploded, surrounding the wounded midget sub in circles of foamed water and falling spray. The depth charges had sealed Midget A's fate; her bow popped to the surface before she quickly disappeared from view and began her final dive to the bottom nearly 450-500 feet below.
Things were still happening fast. Three minutes after she'd fired her first shot the crew of the Ward spotted a motorized sampam in the restricted area, a place it should not be in. Scared because of the gunfire and depth charges, the Sampam started running, not even coming to a halt when ordered to do so via bullhorn. Lt. Outerbridge ordered a gunner's mate to fire a couple of rifle shots across her bow in warning and the sampam quickly came to a halt, her captain wildly waving a white flag in surrender.
At 0652, over an hour before the air attack began, Lt. Outerbridge radioed 14th Naval District headquarters the following message, "We have dropped depth charges upon subs operating in the defensive sea area," but this message did not seem to convey the severity of the situation to Outerbridge, so two minutes later her transmitted, "We have attacked, fired upon, and dropped depth charges on a submarine operating in defensive sea areas." Contrary to what some people have stated the Ward never claimed she had sunk a submarine, however the PBY-5 that was flying overhead did; she had dropped two depth charges on the submarine after the Ward did and radioed, "Sunk one submarine one mile south of Pearl Harbor." Due to slow message channels and a reluctance to believe the report no warning was passed to the rest of the fleet slumbering in the harbor. The Ward then notified the Coast guard of the sampam she had in two and requesting they send out a boat to take it in. Lacking any further orders, the Ward continued to patrol; at 0703 her SONAR operator reported a positive contact and the Ward once again turned and increased speed, dropping five depth charges on the contact at 0705. The only result, however, was a large black bubble that rose to the surface.
Soon her patrol time was up and she headed back into port, arriving at the mouth of the harbor at 0800, just as the sound of gunfire and explosions began to cross the water. Initially the crew thought it was blasting for a new road connecting the harbor and Honolulu, but soon a Japanese Val dive bomber flew by and dropped a bomb that missed the Ward by only 300 yards. Immediately the ship began a series of racetrack figure 8 turns and began to bring all of her boilers on line for maximum speed and maneuverability. The Ward was in a bad spot; her 3" guns were designed for surface to surface engagements and could not elevate high enough or more fast enough to effectively fight against aircraft. She had another 3" gun, but it was mainly for shooting star shells at night, most of which turned out to be defective anyway. Lastly, her .30 cal water cooled machine guns soon jammed after her water filled jackets clogged from salt-water build up. Thankfully she was never directly targeted again.
She patrolled the rest of the morning, and came in quickly to the West Lock in the afternoon to take on more depth charges. Later that night, she and some other naval ships were ordered to race at high speed to a point where an incoming invasion fleet was reported to be. There was no such force and the task force returned early the next morning. Returning to her station, she patrolled the approaches to Pearl Harbor for the next three days, dropping over 170 depth charges in attacks on suspected submarines. In fact, Ward dropped so many depth charges that her supply of them was rationed. It should be noted that Ward was one of the few ships in the offshore patrol that had SONAR, which was still new and producing many false positives for operators who had been rushed through the training.
In two separate incidents the Ward discovered bodies of Japanese personnel and retrieved them for delivery to shore; these were either crew members of a midget submarine that had been abandoned in the area or a Val dive bomber that had been shot down nearby. The first body was discovered on December 13th and was brought to shore by a PT boat so that Ward could remain on station. The second was discovered the next day and was brought to shore by a Coast Guard ship.
