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USS Farragut (DD-348), 1934-1947

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USS Farragut, first of a class of eight 1365-ton destroyers, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Commissioned in June 1934 as the first U.S. Navy destroyer built in more than a decade, she operated in the Atlantic area until the spring of 1935. Transferred at that time to the Pacific, Farragut took part in the U.S. Fleet's peacetime maneuvers and training. Her base was shifted from the west coast to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in October 1939, and she was moored there when Japan began the Pacific War with the 7 December 1941 surprise attack on that base. Her early wartime missions included patrol and escort duties in the vicinity of Hawaii and the California coast. In early May 1942, the destroyer participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Farragut remained in the south Pacific area through the end of 1942. In August she screened aircraft carriers in the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi and in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. During the rest of the Guadalcanal Campaign she was mainly employed on patrol and escort missions. Following overhaul in early 1943, she was sent to Alaskan waters, where she took part in the Attu and Kiska operations in May and August. In November 1943 and January-February 1944, Farragut was part of the armada that seized bases in the Gilbert and Marshall islands. She then moved south to support landings along the north shore of New Guinea before returning to the central Pacific to participate in the invasions of Saipan and Guam and in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, during June and July 1944.

Later in the year, Farragut was assigned to screen a force of oilers that sustained the fleet during its assaults on Japanese positions in the western Pacific. Though escort missions occupied most of her remaining World War II service, she was also employed on radar picket duty during the Okinawa campaign in April and May 1945. Soon after the fighting ended, Farragut was sent back to the United States. She arrived at the New York Navy Yard in late September 1945 and was decommissioned a month later. USS Farragut was sold for scrapping in August 1947.

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