USS O'Flaherty

USS O'Flaherty (DE-340) was a built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Ensign Frank Woodrow O'Flaherty, a pilot who posthumously received the Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of Midway. Laid down in October 1943, launched in December of that year, and commissioned almost four months later, O'Flaherty served on convoy escort duty in the Pacific from August 1944. She operated out of Pearl Harbor in the eastern Pacific during November and December, initially with a hunter-killer group. During the first half of 1945, O'Flaherty protected escort carriers in the invasion of Lingayen Gulf, the Battle of Iwo Jima, and the Battle of Okinawa, which occurred in rapid succession. In the final months of the war in the Pacific, she returned to convoy escort duty. Decommissioned postwar, O'Flaherty spent more than twenty years in the Pacific Reserve Fleet before being sold for scrap in the early 1970s. John C. Butler-class destroyer escortThe John C. Butler-class destroyer escorts were designed to meet a need for large numbers of cheap anti-submarine escort ships for ocean convoys, and as a result carried little anti-surface armament. The class was part of an initial requirement for 720 escorts to be completed by the end of 1944, which was significantly reduced. O'Flaherty was long overall with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced standard and full load, with a complement of 14 officers and 201 enlisted men. The ship was propelled by two Westinghouse geared steam turbines powered by two "D" Express boilers, which created for a designed maximum speed of . She had a range of at . O'Flaherty mounted a main battery of two single turret-mounted 5-inch/38 caliber guns, one forward and one aft of the superstructure, to protect against surface and aerial threats, directed by the Mark 51 Gunnery Fire-Control System. In addition, she mounted two twin 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft (AA) guns, superfiring over the 5-inch guns, and ten single 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannon, also controlled by the Mark 51 fire-control system.