Talyn
SAINT
The Fletcher-Class destroyer USS Twiggs (DD-591), was built side by side at the Charleston Navy Yard with her sister, the future USS Paul Hamilton (DD-590), laid down on 20 January 1943. Commissioned on 4 November 1943, Twiggs was built in just 288 days.
The Twiggs then escorted “Big Ben,” the new (and ill-fated) Essex-class carrier USS Franklin (CV-13) to Hawaii via the Panama Canal and San Diego, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 6 June 1944.
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USS Twiggs (DD-591), 7 December 1943.
After, operations in the Western Pacific the Twiggs deployed to Okinawa to take part in the preinvasion bombardment, alternating with anti-air picket duty and ASW patrols.
This work grew even more deadly serious on 28 April when a downed kamikaze crashed just feet abreast of Twiggs and exploded, delivering a “glancing lick.” The force carried away much of the destroyer’s running lines and radio antennas, blew in her hull plating along the starboard side from frames 46 to 60, wrecked most of “officer’s country,” and curled back her starboard prop.
This required her to fall out of the operation and retire to Kerama Retto, a safer harbor (though still subject to near continuous air attacks) in the forward area, where she could tie up next to the LST-turned-repair ship USS Nestor (ARB-6) for two weeks in “the boneyard” and get back in the fight.
Filled with a shipload of self-titled “Old Men” of experienced craftsmen drawn from shipyards across the country, many well past draft age, USS Nestor (ARB 6) completed 1,760 rush repair jobs on 47 warships and auxiliaries in her eight months at Kerama Retto, mostly kamikaze-induced. Ironically, besides Twiggs, they helped patch up the battered carrier Franklin, which Twiggs had escorted into the theatre from the East Coast.
The end came on 16 June, while, on radar picket duty some 5,000 yards off Senaga Shima, Okinawa’s southern tip, that observers on Twiggs around 2030 observed a single, low-flying enemy aircraft moments before it dropped a torpedo into her port side, adjacent to the destroyer’s number 2 magazine.
Very few men stationed forward survived, in particular, most of the destroyer’s bridge crew, including CDR Philip, were lost in the conflagration.
Not content with just hitting Twiggs with a fish and living to fight another day, the same torpedo bomber circled back around sharply and onto the starboard side of the stricken destroyer, then crashed between her No. 3 and No. 4 guns, starting a whole new set of fires and secondary explosions.
In a press release by the Navy...
------"Twiggs was burning furiously, particularly around the bridge structure and forward torpedo tubes, midship machine guns, and after deck house, including 5″ mounts three and four. Almost continuous minor explosions were observed, which were believed to be 40mm, 20mm, and 5″ ammunition. Burning fragments were thrown short distances about the ship, around the rescue boats, and further igniting the thick, heavy oil layer on the water. Attempts to close the surface oil fires with the ship at this time to extinguish flames were prevented by the survivors in the water and about the stern, and propellers. At 2129, there was a tremendous explosion on the Twiggs, followed by a momentary inferno of fire throughout the ship, and she sank in less than a minute, leaving a large burning oil fire on the surface, which gradually disappeared."
Twiggs was one of five American destroyers to have more than half their crew killed and wounded in suicide attacks during the battle for Okinawa– the others being Halligan (DD-584), Luce (DD-522), Morrison (DD-560), and Drexler (DD-741).
Twiggs was officially struck from the Navy list on 11 July 1945. She earned four battle stars for her war.
The Twiggs then escorted “Big Ben,” the new (and ill-fated) Essex-class carrier USS Franklin (CV-13) to Hawaii via the Panama Canal and San Diego, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 6 June 1944.
Warship Wednesday, June 18, 2025: Death of a Destroyer
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laststandonzombieisland.com
USS Twiggs (DD-591), 7 December 1943.
After, operations in the Western Pacific the Twiggs deployed to Okinawa to take part in the preinvasion bombardment, alternating with anti-air picket duty and ASW patrols.
This work grew even more deadly serious on 28 April when a downed kamikaze crashed just feet abreast of Twiggs and exploded, delivering a “glancing lick.” The force carried away much of the destroyer’s running lines and radio antennas, blew in her hull plating along the starboard side from frames 46 to 60, wrecked most of “officer’s country,” and curled back her starboard prop.
This required her to fall out of the operation and retire to Kerama Retto, a safer harbor (though still subject to near continuous air attacks) in the forward area, where she could tie up next to the LST-turned-repair ship USS Nestor (ARB-6) for two weeks in “the boneyard” and get back in the fight.
Filled with a shipload of self-titled “Old Men” of experienced craftsmen drawn from shipyards across the country, many well past draft age, USS Nestor (ARB 6) completed 1,760 rush repair jobs on 47 warships and auxiliaries in her eight months at Kerama Retto, mostly kamikaze-induced. Ironically, besides Twiggs, they helped patch up the battered carrier Franklin, which Twiggs had escorted into the theatre from the East Coast.
The end came on 16 June, while, on radar picket duty some 5,000 yards off Senaga Shima, Okinawa’s southern tip, that observers on Twiggs around 2030 observed a single, low-flying enemy aircraft moments before it dropped a torpedo into her port side, adjacent to the destroyer’s number 2 magazine.
Very few men stationed forward survived, in particular, most of the destroyer’s bridge crew, including CDR Philip, were lost in the conflagration.
Not content with just hitting Twiggs with a fish and living to fight another day, the same torpedo bomber circled back around sharply and onto the starboard side of the stricken destroyer, then crashed between her No. 3 and No. 4 guns, starting a whole new set of fires and secondary explosions.
In a press release by the Navy...
------"Twiggs was burning furiously, particularly around the bridge structure and forward torpedo tubes, midship machine guns, and after deck house, including 5″ mounts three and four. Almost continuous minor explosions were observed, which were believed to be 40mm, 20mm, and 5″ ammunition. Burning fragments were thrown short distances about the ship, around the rescue boats, and further igniting the thick, heavy oil layer on the water. Attempts to close the surface oil fires with the ship at this time to extinguish flames were prevented by the survivors in the water and about the stern, and propellers. At 2129, there was a tremendous explosion on the Twiggs, followed by a momentary inferno of fire throughout the ship, and she sank in less than a minute, leaving a large burning oil fire on the surface, which gradually disappeared."
Twiggs was one of five American destroyers to have more than half their crew killed and wounded in suicide attacks during the battle for Okinawa– the others being Halligan (DD-584), Luce (DD-522), Morrison (DD-560), and Drexler (DD-741).
Twiggs was officially struck from the Navy list on 11 July 1945. She earned four battle stars for her war.