USS Welles (DD-628)

The second Welles (DD-628) was laid down on 27 September 1941 at Seattle, Wash., by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp.; launched on 7 September 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Suzanne Dudley Welles Brainard, great-granddaughter of Gideon Welles; and commissioned on 16 August 1943, Lt. Cmdr. Doyle M. Coffee in command.

Following shakedown training along the west coast of the United States, Welles returned to Puget Sound on 26 October 1943. After post-shakedown availability there, she got underway on 15 November in company with two British escort carriers which she escorted as far as San Diego, Calif. Continuing on her way, the destroyer transited the Panama Canal on 28 November and set a course for New York. She stopped along the way at Norfolk and, upon her arrival at New York on 4 December, joined Destroyer Division (DesDiv) 38. Ordered farther north, the warship departed New York on 26 December and arrived in Boston harbor the following day. On the 28th, she and her division mates got underway for the western Pacific in the screen of New Jersey (BB-62). The task unit stopped briefly at Norfolk where New Jersey's sister battleship, Iowa (BB-61), joined it for the voyage to the Pacific. The unit transited the Panama Canal during the first week in January 1944 and continued its voyage west on the 8th.

Welles and her travelling companions arrived at Funafuti in the Ellice Islands on 21 January 1944 and remained there for a week before getting underway for New Guinea. The destroyer arrived at Milne Bay on 5 February and joined the 7th Fleet. Later in the month, she escorted a convoy of tank landing ships [LST] to Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain. On 29 February, Welles provided gunfire support for elements of the Army's 1st Cavalry then landing on Los Negros Island in the Admiralties. During that operation, the destroyer came under fire from enemy automatic weapons and at least one field gun but sustained no damage. After completing her portion of the mission, she moved out to the transport area to provide antisubmarine defense. Periodically, she returned close to shore to provide call fire for American troops fighting ashore.

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From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, compiled by the Naval History and Heritage Command (Welles II (DD-628)). A work of the United States Government, in the public domain.