USS Hank (DD-702), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, was named for Lieutenant Commander William Hank.
Construction and commissiong
Hank was launched on 21 May 1944 by the Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Kearny, New Jersey, sponsored by Mrs. William Edwin Hank, widow of Lieutenant Commander Hank, and was commissioned on 28 August 1944.
Service history
World War II
After completing her Caribbean shakedown on 18 October, Hank joined , , and at New York and then sailed for the Pacific reaching Pearl Harbor on 6 December via the Panama Canal and San Francisco. Hank reported to Ulithi on 28 December and sortied 2 days later as part of the screen for Task Force 38, a fast carrier force under Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Sr. The primary mission of the carriers was to conduct air strikes against strategic Japanese positions along the China coast and on Formosa and Luzon to distract enemy attention and to divert Japanese ships from the landings at Lingayen Gulf which were to begin on 9 January 1945. The day after the invasion was launched, Task Force 38 moved into the South China Sea to conduct a series of devastating raids on targets along the China Coast and in Indochina. After launching one final raid against Okinawa, the carriers and escorts, Hank included, returned to Ulithi on 26 January 1945.
Joining Task Force 58, a reorganized fast carrier strike force under the command of Admiral Marc Mitscher, Hank sortied on 10 February. Carrier planes launched massive raids against airfields, aircraft factories, and shipping in the Tokyo area 16 and 17 February in paralyzing diversionary strikes prior to the invasion of Iwo Jima, on 19 February. These raids, launched less than from Tokyo Bay itself, were the first carrier air strikes to hit Japan proper since the Doolittle raid of 1942.
Among the ships which Hank helped screen in the 116 unit task force were battle veterans such as heavy cruiser , aircraft carriers , , , , , Yorktown, , and , and battleships , , , and . Deploying to the Iwo Jima area the afternoon of 18 February, Hank remained there to provide support for the invasion which began the following day, and she operated off the bitterly contested island until returning to Ulithi on 4 March.
As the Pacific war moved into its climactic phases, Hank steamed from Ulithi on 14 March 1945, with Task Force 58 for further strikes against the Japanese home islands. Closing to within of their targets, the carriers launched massive strikes against airfields on Kyushu and ships in the Inland Sea 18–19 March. Although under heavy air opposition from time to time, the carrier planes claimed a total of 528 Japanese aircraft destroyed. After participating in the bombardment of enemy shore positions—including radio facilities, a weather station, and an airfield on Minami Daito Shima on 27–28 March, Hank headed for Okinawa. Her task force furnished support for landings made on that heavily fortified island on 1 April, and Hank spent a busy week screening the carriers and stopping kamikazes with highly effective antiaircraft fire. The destroyer then reported to a lonely radar picket station, where on the afternoon of 11 April she narrowly averted disaster by her effective gunfire. As a kamikaze came in low off the port bow, heading directly for the bridge, Hanks accurate antiaircraft fire deflected it slightly, but the Zero came in close enough to kill three sailors before crashing into the sea and exploding close aboard.
After repairs at Ulithi, Hank again joined Task Force 58 on 1 May to resume screening and radar picket duties off Okinawa. June was spent at San Pedro Bay, Philippines, undergoing replenishment and training, and on 1 July the carriers redesignated Task Force 38 and operating under Vice Admiral McCain in Admiral Halsey's 3rd Fleet sortied to launch further strikes against the home islands. Hank spent most of this period on hazardous and lonely radar picket duty, steaming from the main body of ships to provide early warning of enemy air attacks.
On the night of 18 July, Hank joined Destroyer Squadron 62 and Cruiser Division 18 for an antishipping sweep across the entrance to Tokyo Bay. At 22:30, she and the destroyer mistakenly opened gunfire on the U.S. Navy submarine at a range of while Gabilan was on the surface in the Pacific Ocean off the Bōsō Peninsula, Honshu, Japan, at . Gabilan had difficulty diving in heavy seas and broached, and the destroyers' gunfire straddled her an estimated ten times before she finally submerged and broke contact.