USS Young (DD-580) - 1943

1943

Following a shakedown cruise in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, the USS Young briefly operated out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. During that assignment, she formed part of the escort for Iowa (BB-61) when that battleship carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt across the Atlantic on the first leg of his journey to the Teheran Conference of November 1943. In the midst of that voyage, the destroyer received orders instructing her to head for the Pacific theater. She transited the Panama Canal on 24 November and reported for duty with the Pacific Fleet. She arrived in Pearl Harbor early in December and received orders assigning her to the small U.S. 9th Fleet in the northmost Pacific Ocean. The USS Young remained at Pearl Harbor for several weeks, and she then headed for the Aleutian Islands, where she arrived in mid-January 1944.