1944
Helm continued her escort duty in the Guadalcanal and Milne Bay areas until departing on February 19, 1944 for Pearl Harbor. The ship proceeded thence to Mare Island Navy Yard escorting the battleship Maryland, and arrived on March 4.
Helm departed San Francisco on May 5, 1944. After arrival in Pearl Harbor five days later she engaged in refresher training in Hawaiian waters. She arrived Majuro on June 4 and Kwajalein on June 7 to join the naval force assembling for the next step in America's amphibious sweep across the Pacific, the invasion of the Marianas. She joined Vice Admiral Mitscher's famed Task Force 58 and sailed with it from Kwajalein on June 7. The fast carrier group guarded the western approaches to the islands from June 11 to June 13 and provided air support for the landings, which were carried out by Admiral Kelly Turner's amphibian group 1,000 miles from the nearest advance base at Eniwetok. The carrier task forces returned from a strike on the Bonin Islands on June 18 and deployed to repel the Japanese fleet as it closed the Marianas for a decisive naval battle. The great fleets approached each other on June 19 for the biggest carrier engagement of the war. As four large air raids hit the American fleet formation, fighter cover from Helm's task group and surface fire from the ships annihilated the Japanese planes. With able assistance from American submarines, Mitscher succeeded in sinking two Japanese carriers while inflicting such staggering losses on the enemy naval air arm that the battle was dubbed the "Marianas Turkey Shoot." Admiral Spruance had succeeded in protecting the invasion force in a battle the importance of which was well understood by the Japanese. Admiral Toyoda had said on June 15: "The fate of the Empire rests on this one battle," repeating the words of Admiral Togo at the Battle of Tsushima.
Following the decisive Battle of the Philippine Sea, Helm and the fast carriers turned their attention to neutralizing the enemy bases on the Bonin and Volcano Islands and supporting the invasion of Guam. The mobile carrier groups, screened by destroyers and cruisers, also began attacks on the Palau Islands on July 25, 1944. With occasional respite at Eniwetok or Ulithi, the carriers attacked Iwo Jima and other islands in the western Pacific until well into September. Helm sank a small Japanese freighter off Iwo Jima on September 2 and later that day surprised and sank a small cargo ship.
Helm and her carrier group arrived in Seeadler Harbor on September 21, 1944. They sortied again on September 24; and, after ground support strikes in the Palaus, rendezvoused with the entire task force of seventeen carriers with their supporting and screening vessels for an important sweep to the west. Strikes were launched against Okinawa on October 10; after which the carriers turned to their real objective, the airfields and military installations on Formosa. In a devastating 3-day attack carrier planes did much to destroy that island as a supporting base for the Japanese in the battle of the Philippines and other invasions to come. Enemy planes retaliated with heavy and repeated land-based attacks. Helm brought down one bomber with her 5-inch guns on October 13 and assisted in shooting down several more.
Following the Formosa Air Battle, a convincing demonstration of the power and mobility of sea power, Task Force 38 returned to the east coast of Luzon to strike enemy air bases in the Philippines to neutralize Japanese air power during the invasion of Leyte. By October 24 it was clear that the assault on Leyte had called forth one final effort on the part of the Japanese to destroy the American fleet. Its three major fleet units moved toward the Philippines. The Northern Group was to lure the American carriers northward away from Leyte, before the others converged on the assault area in Leyte Gulf for a two-pronged death blow. In for the historic Battle of Leyte Gulf, Helm with Rear Admiral Davison's Task Group 38.4 turned her attention toward Admiral Kurita's Center Force. Planes from the carriers struck the Japanese ships near mid-day in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea, sinking giant battleship Musashi and damaging other heavy ships.
While two of the other phases of this great battle, the Battle off Samar and the Battle of Surigao Strait, were being fought, Admiral Halsey took the carrier groups north to engage the powerful fleet of Admiral Ozawa. Screened by Helm and other surface units, the carriers made air contact on October 25 and, in a series of devastating strikes, sank four Japanese carriers and a destroyer. The great sea battle was thus ended, with the invasion of Leyte secured and the Japanese fleet no longer an effective fighting unit.
Helm and the carriers resumed direct support of ground operations on Leyte on October 26. In addition to air attacks by land-based Japanese aircraft, the group also experienced submarine attack on October 28. Helm and companion destroyer Gridley made a contact around noon and, as the carriers cleared the area, the two ships dropped depth charges and sank 1-46. Two carriers, Franklin and Belleau Wood, were damaged on October 30 by suicide planes. That night the group retired toward Ulithi, where it arrived on November 2 after over two months of almost continuous service.
Departing Ulithi again on November 5, 1944, Helm and her carrier group returned to the Philippines for strikes against Japanese shipping and shore targets, returning on November 20. Helm was then detached from Task Group 38.4 and steamed from Ulithi for Manus on November 20. Arriving two days later, the ship began preparations for the next important amphibious operation in the Philippine campaign, the landings at Lingayen Gulf on Luzon. Helm departed on December 27 with a large task group bound for Lingayen Gulf.
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