USS Wren (DD-568) was a of the United States Navy.
Namesake
Solomon Wren was born in 1780 in Loudoun County, Virginia. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at Alexandria, Virginia on 1 April 1799. Assigned to the schooner , Wren rose in rank and, by the end of 1803, had been promoted to sergeant.
In February 1804, Wren volunteered for the expedition to destroy the frigate , captured by the Tripolitan pirates on October 31, 1803 after grounding on an uncharted reef off Tripoli. Under the command of Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr., Wren and 68 other sailors and marines entered Tripoli harbor on the night of February 16, in the ketch and succeeded in setting fire to the former American ship during the First Barbary War. On 3 August 1804 Wren was slightly wounded while assigned to Gunboat No. 4 during another attack on Tripoli. On 20 September he transferred to the frigate and returned home. He was detached from the Marine Corps on 24 March 1805 and no further record of his life has been found.
Construction and commissioning
Wren was laid down on 24 April 1943 at Seattle, Wash., by the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corp.; launched on 29 January 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Jeanne F. Dockweiler; and commissioned on 20 May 1944.
Wren had three blade props instead of four, making her much faster than most Fletcher class destroyers: 39.9 knots instead of the 35 listed above which was the standard Fletcher speed.
World War II
Following commissioning, Wren operated out of San Diego, Calif. conducting shakedown training. In August, she reported for duty with the Northern Pacific Force in the Aleutian Islands. Her duties there consisted largely of patrol and escort work between the islands of the Aleutian chain. She did, however, participate in four shore bombardment missions against the Japanese Kuril Islands with Task Force 92 (TF 92) between November 1944 and April 1945. Her first action occurred on 21 November 1944 when she participated in the shelling of Matsuwa. Her second and third bombardment missions took her to Paramushiro on 5 January and 18 February 1945, respectively. Her final bombardment of the Kurils took place on 15 March 1945, and Matsuwa again served as the target.
On 19 April, she stood out of Kulsk Bay, bound for Hawaii. The destroyer arrived at Pearl Harbor on the 25th but soon continued her voyage to the Western Carolines. She stopped at Ulithi Atoll until 17 May at which time she left the lagoon on her way to join in the six-week-old Okinawa campaign. The ship served in the Ryukyus from 21 May to 18 June, performing antisubmarine patrols and standing antiaircraft radar picket watch. She came under air attack on several occasions but sustained no major hits while ending the careers of at least four of her airborne attackers.
Departing Okinawa on 18 June, she arrived at Leyte in the Philippines three days later and remained there until 1 July when she joined units of TF 38 for the final series of carrier-based aerial attacks on Japan. Wren spent the remaining weeks of the war at sea with TF 38 supporting the carriers while their planes struck the Japanese homeland.
On 26 August, Wren entered Tokyo Bay with other elements of the 3d Fleet to begin the occupation of Japan and to prepare for the formal surrender ceremony at which she was present on 2 September. She departed Japan that same day and, during the next month, visited Iwo Jima and Eniwetok. The warship returned to Tokyo on 13 October for a visit of just over a month. She departed Japan on 18 November and arrived at Oahu on the 28th. Resuming her voyage east on 1 December, she entered San Diego on the 7th. After a two-day visit, she headed—by way of the Panama Canal—for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard where she arrived on 23 December. After an inactivation overhaul at Philadelphia, Wren moved to Charleston, S.C., late in March 1946. On 13 July 1946, the destroyer was placed out of commission at Charleston.
Wren earned three battle stars during World War II.
1951 – 1963
A little over five years later, on 7 September 1951, Wren was placed back in commission at Charleston. For the next two years, she operated along the eastern seaboard and in the West Indies. During the latter months of 1951, she conducted standardization and vibration tests under the auspices of the Bureau of Ships and its research facility at Carderock, Md., the David Taylor Model Basin. She returned to Charleston in December and, throughout 1952 and for the first eight months of 1953, performed normal operations and training in the western Atlantic.