USS Ward (DD-139)

Ward in disruptive camouflage.
History
United States
Name:	Ward
Namesake:	James H. Ward
Builder:	Mare Island Navy Yard
Laid down:	15 May 1918
Launched:	1 June 1918
Commissioned:	24 July 1918
Decommissioned:	21 July 1921
Recommissioned:	15 January 1941
Reclassified:	High-speed transport, APD-16, 6 February 1943
Fate:	Sunk by kamikaze 7 December 1944
General characteristics
Class and type:	Wickes-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,247 long tons (1,267 t)
Length:	314 ft 4 in (95.81 m)
Beam:	30 ft 11 in (9.42 m)
Draft:	9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
Propulsion:	2 × geared steam turbines 2 × shafts
Speed:	35 kn (65 km/h; 40 mph)
Complement:	231 officers and enlisted
Armament:	4 × 4 in (100 mm)/50 cal guns 2 × 3 in (76 mm)/50 cal anti-aircraft guns 12 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes (4x3)

USS Ward (DD-139) was a 1,247 long tons (1,267 t) Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War I, later APD-16 (see High speed transport) in World War II. She fired the first American shot in World War II, when she engaged the Japanese before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and successfully sank her opponent.

Ward was named in honor of Commander James Harmon Ward, USN, (1806–1861), the first U.S. Navy officer to be killed in action during the American Civil War.Ward was built at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California in a record of 17½ days. Under the pressure of urgent World War I needs for destroyers, her construction was pushed rapidly from keel-laying on 15 May 1918 to launching on 1 June and commissioning on 24 July 1918.

Ward transferred to the Atlantic late in the year and helped support the trans-Atlantic flight of the NC flying boats in May 1919. She came back to the Pacific a few months later and remained there until she was decommissioned in July 1921. She had received the hull number DD-139 in July 1920. The outbreak of World War II in Europe brought Ward back into active service. She recommissioned in January 1941. Sent to Pearl Harbor shortly thereafter, the destroyer operated on local patrol duties in Hawaiian waters over the next year.

On the morning of 7 December 1941, under the command of LCDR William W. Outerbridge, Ward was conducting a precautionary patrol off the entrance to Pearl Harbor when she was informed at 03:57 by visual signals from the coastal minesweeper Condor of a periscope sighting, whereupon Ward began searching for the contact. At about 06:37, she sighted a periscope apparently tailing the cargo ship Antares whereupon she attacked the target. The target sunk was a Japanese Ko-hyoteki-class two-man midget submarine and thus Ward fired the first American shots of World War II a few hours before Japanese carrier aircraft formally opened the conflict with their attack on the Pacific Fleet inside the harbor. The submarine was attempting to enter the harbor by following Antares through the anti-submarine nets at the harbor entrance. Ward fired several rounds from its main guns hitting the conning tower of the sub and also dropped several depth charges during the attack.