USS Baldwin

USS Baldwin in the Suez Canal, Egypt, on 9 February 1945
History
United States
Name	Baldwin
Namesake	Charles H. Baldwin
Builder	Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation
Laid down	19 July 1941
Launched	14 June 1942
Commissioned	30 April 1943
Decommissioned	20 June 1946
Stricken	1 June 1961
Fate	Scuttled, 5 June 1961
General characteristics
Class and type	Gleaves-class destroyer
Displacement	1,630 tons
Length	348 ft 4 in (106.17 m)
Beam	36 ft 0 in (10.97 m)
Draft	17 ft 6 in (5.33 m)
Propulsion	50,000 shp (37,000 kW) 4 boilers 2 propellers
Speed	35 knots (65 km/h)
Range	6,500 nautical miles (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement	16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament	4 × dual purpose guns 6 × 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns , 2 × twin Bofors 40 mm guns , 7 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons, 5 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (5 Mark 15 torpedoes), 6 × depth charge projectors , 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Baldwin (DD-624), was a

On 5 June, she departed the

Three days later, the destroyer departed Plymouth in the screen of a 50-ship convoy bound for North Africa and arrived in Bizerte, Tunisia, on 28 July. She operated in the western Mediterranean mostly between Oran, Algeria, and Naples, Italy before arriving off Saint-Tropez on 15 August, D-Day for the invasion of southern France. Baldwin served there as an element of the Antisubmarine and Convoy Control Group, Task Group 80.6 (TG 80.6) which screened follow up convoys between Oran and southern France. On 23 September, she concluded her part in that operation and departed Oran in company with her division mates bound for the United States.

1945

Upon her arrival at New York on 3 October, the destroyer resumed operations in American coastal waters. On 21 January 1945, Baldwin put to sea from Norfolk to rendezvous with the cruiser Quincy which carried President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the first leg of the trip to the "Big Three" conference at Yalta. She returned to New York on 27 February and began four months of operations in American waters. During that time, Baldwin escorted Bon Homme Richard to the Panama Canal Zone and operated off the east coast in the antisubmarine screens of the aircraft carriers Boxer and Card.

On 24 June, the destroyer sailed from New York on her way to the Pacific. Steaming in company with

1946-1961

The ship returned to the United States in January 1946 and operated along the east coast through the spring of that year. She was placed out of commission at

Baldwin was considered not worth repairing. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 June 1961, and she was scuttled on 6 June 1961, not far from where she went aground.

Awards

Baldwin earned three

References

 This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to USS Baldwin (DD-624).

• Mann, Raymond A. (16 December 2005). "Baldwin".
  Naval Historical Center
  . Retrieved 24 February 2008.
• history.navy.mil: USS Baldwin photos Archived 20 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine
• navsource.org: USS Baldwin
• hazegray.org: USS Baldwin