USS Shields (DD-596) - World War II

World War II

Shields' shakedown cruise, interrupted by a nine-day escort assignment with USS Iowa (BB-61), lasted from 7 March to 18 April 1945. She departed Puget Sound on 6 May and, after several days of operations in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, shoved off for Eniwetok Atoll with convoy #PD-413-T. Her short period of combat service in World War II, 24 May – 15 August 1945, consisted almost entirely of escort duty between and patrol duty around Eniwetok, Ulithi, Leyte, Okinawa, and Borneo. Shields saw actual combat only once during the war; she shelled Japanese shore installations at Miri, Borneo, in support of Australian ground forces, on 26 June 1945.

Shields was at Buckner Bay, Okinawa, on 15 August 1945 when she received orders from CINCPACAREA to "cease all offensive activity against the Japanese." After a short cruise to Leyte, Subic Bay, and back to Okinawa, she got underway to rendezvous with Task Group 78.1 (TG 78.1) and serve as escort to units of Transport Squadron 17 (Transron 17), at that time ferrying occupation troops to Jinsen, Korea. The occupation commenced without opposition; and, on 12 September, she steamed out of Jinsen with Task Unit 71.5.1 (TU 71.5.1) bound for the waters off northern China.

For most of the remainder of 1945, Shields remained in the area of the Gulf of Po Hai. Her primary assignment here was to participate in the naval demonstrations being conducted off the coast of northern China. Throughout this period, she also reconnoitered the unstable situation at the port of Chefoo. Her travels while operating off northern China took her to most of the major ports on the Gulf of Po Hai, including Chefoo, Chinwangto, Weihaiwei, Taku, Dairen, and Port Arthur.

Shields rounded out her first Far Eastern tour with a mission to escort USS Antietam (CV-36) and USS Boxer (CV-21) to the end of the Seventh Fleet's area of responsibility and patrol duty with the Yangtze River Patrol Force based at Shanghai. She returned to San Pedro Bay, California, on 19 February 1946, having stopped along the way at Eniwetok and Pearl Harbor. She remained on the west coast until being decommissioned and placed in reserve on 14 June 1946.