Displacement: 2,200 tons
Length: 376 ft 6 in (114.8 m)
Beam: 41 ft 1 in (12.5 m)
Draft: 15 ft 8 in (4.8 m)
Propulsion: 60,000 shp (45 MW); 2 propellers
Speed: 34 knots (63 km/h)
Range: 6500 nmi. (12,000 km) @ 15 kt
Complement: 336
Armament: 6 x 5 in./38 guns (12 cm), 12 x 40mm AA guns, 11 x 20mm AA guns, 10 x 21 in. torpedo tubes, 6 x depth charge projectors, 2 x depth charge tracks
USS Laffey (DD-724) is the only surviving American destroyer from WWII to have served in both the Atlantic and Pacific campaigns. To appreciate Laffey's story of absolute heroism, you start with the ship's defiant nickname; The Ship That Would Not Die.
Commissioned in 1944, USS Laffey (DD-724) is a Sumner Class destroyer named for the first USS Laffey (DD-459) of WWII, sent to the bottom by a Japanese torpedo in 1942 while taking on two enemy battleships.
After training in early 1944, the second Laffey immediately headed for the coast of France and on the morning of June 6th opened fire on Normandy’s Omaha Beach in support of D-Day.
Unscathed, Laffey's good fortune was again tested when later that month it was targeted by a German battery and hit with a shell... that didn't explode!
Laffey was ordered to leave the European theater and head for the war zone in the Pacific. The destroyer participated in attacks on the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Leyte Gulf for before heading to the last enemy strong hold that separated the Allies from the Japanese mainland - Okinawa.
With the pivotal battle at hand, Laffey was only 30 miles off the coast of Okinawa, in essence, the first "lookout" or radar picket location. The morning of April 15th a wave of fifty Japanese planes launched an attack on the invasion force with half those planes going after Laffey. The destroyer took punishing blows from four bombs and was hit by five Japanese Kamikaze. Incredibly, the crew not only managed to keep the crippled ship afloat but shot down nine attacking planes. The legend of The Ship that Would Not Die was born.
After five WWII battle stars and two more for Korean service, Laffey was decommissioned in 1975.
Laffey's Namesake
Bartlett Laffey was a native of Ireland who enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and was awarded the Medal of Honor for battlefield courage. Assigned to the Union gunboat Marmora, Laffey and his shipmates came under Confederate attack at Yazoo City, Mississippi on April 5, 1864. Under heavy enemy fire, Laffey manned a 12 pound Howitzer and was credited with helping turn back the fierce Confederate assault.
Seaman Laffey died in 1901. His granddaughter, Miss Eleanor Forgerty, christened the first USS Laffey in 1941.
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CV-10 was to be known as the Bon Homme Richard but was renamed in honor of the only American carrier lost in the pivotal Battle of Midway, USS Yorktown (CV-5).
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