Joseph Aloysius Gainard was born on 11 October 1889 in
Navy Cross for distinguished service while Master of the American merchant steamer SS City of Flint, seized by a Germancruiser on the high seas on 9 October 1939 but returned to him in a Norwegianfjord on 3 November. Recalled to active duty on 30 July 1941, he commanded the submarine decoy shipUSS Big Horn in the Caribbean, then commanded the attack transportUSS Bolivar in the Pacific. He died from illness in the U.S. Naval Hospital at San Diego
, California, on 23 December 1943.
Construction and commissioning
Gainard was
launched on 17 September 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Joseph A. Gainard, widow of Captain Gainard. The ship was commissioned at New York
on 23 November 1944.
Service history
World War II
After shakedown training off
Okinawa
, acting as a part of a decoy task force that made feints against the southeastern coast between 1 and 2 April while the landings were effected on the western beaches.
Gainard operated as
Combat Air Patrol unit that found her controlling an average of 10 planes from dawn to dusk with the assistance of a fighter director team on board. In 39 days on picket stations, she was instrumental in the destruction of at least 27 kamikaze
s, 5 of which were shot down by her gunners.
On 27 occasions, enemy aerial strikes of 50 or more planes attacked Gainard and ships in her immediate vicinity. Seventeen of these attacks were close aboard the destroyer, and four nearby ships were hit by suicide planes. She manned the fighter director unit for initial landings at
patrol bomber which had run out of fuel and landed in the sea, and she directed two other damaged patrol planes back to their base
. Though several times narrowly missed by determined runs of suicide planes, her skillful gunners and effective maneuvering prevented damage. She remained on station until 1 July when Okinawa was officially declared secured.
After patrol and convoy escort duty in approaches to Okinawa, she sailed on 21 July to the
Faroes, and into the Norwegian Sea and portions of the North Sea. This was only one of many operations in which Gainard made important contributions to improve the overall combat readiness of forces earmarked for the Allied command in defence of an outbreak during the Cold War
.
As an interesting side note, during a 1958 deployment in the Mediterranean with the 6th fleet, while in the Italian port of Livorno, parts of the German comedy film "Kanonenserenade" (Italian title "Pezzo, capopezzo e capitano") were filmed on board Gainard. The film was the work of German director Wolfgang Staudte and starred Italian actor/director Vittorio De Sica.
Gainard's eighth tour with the 6th Fleet (August 1960-February 1961) was interrupted by 6 weeks of combat readiness operations with the
Key West, Florida; participation in Operation "Mercy" with carriers Shangri-La and Antietam in rendering assistance to thousands of flood-stricken victims of Hurricane Carla off the Texas coast during September–October 1961; gunnery schoolship duties for the Fleet at Norfolk; and service as a unit of the Cuban Contingency Task Groups during the Cuban Missile Crisis
of November–December 1962.
In May 1963, Gainard served as support ship on recovery station during the successful launching of
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United States
