1944
The arrival of the USS Young in Alaskan waters, however, came some three months after the Aleutians campaign ended. Her duties for the next eight months, therefore, consisted of escort and patrol missions spiced with an occasional bombardment of Japanese installations in the Kuril Islands. She was an element of Rear Admiral Wilder D. Baker's striking force on 2 February 1944 when that unit conducted the first bombardment of Japanese home territory in the Kurils. She twice returned to those islands in June, shelling Matsuwa on the 13th and Paramushiro on the 26th. Otherwise, her only enemy during the first eight months of 1944 proved to be the foul Aleutians weather.
During September, she returned to the United States for an overhaul. Upon completing repairs, the destroyer departed San Francisco Bay on 6 October, bound for the western Pacific. Reporting in at Manus Island in the Admiralty Islands late in the month, she received orders to join the escort of a supply convoy bound for the newly invaded Philippines. She reached Leyte Island on 18 November in the midst of an enemy air attack on the invasion fleet. She and her colleagues in the convoy screen combined to splash three of the attacking aircraft.
On 19 December, the Young departed Leyte with 10 other destroyers in the screen of the first Mindoro resupply echelon. The unit came under enemy air attack early in the morning of the 21st but encountered no concerted air opposition until near dusk. At about 17:18, a raid of five kamikazes broke through the combat air patrol, and three of the suicide planes succeeded in their missions, hitting the LST-460, the LST-479, and the Liberty ship S.S. Juan de Fuca. Both LSTs had to be abandoned, but the S.S. Juan de Fuca continued on and reached Mindoro safely with the convoy on the 22nd. During the return voyage, enemy planes returned to harass the convoy but failed to inflict damage. During the approach to and the retirement from Mindoro, the Young claimed a total of five unassisted splashes and two assists.
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