Figure 1: USS Cushing (DD-376) off the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington, during her pre-commissioning trials period, July 1936. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Cushing (DD-376) underway at sea, 1 November 1937. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Cushing (DD-376), date and place unknown. Given her paint scheme and size of the ship’s number on her hull, this is a pre-war photograph. Courtesy Ed Zajkowski. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Cushing (DD-376) underway at sea, 28 April 1938. Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Cushing (DD-376) in San Diego Harbor, California, circa 1938. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Cushing (DD-376) steams ahead of USS Drayton (DD-366) at sea on 8 February 1938. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Cushing (DD-376) at sea on 26 October 1937, followed by USS Smith (DD-378). US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: View of the forward part of USS Cushing (DD-376), taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 15 July 1942. Note the ship's quadruple torpedo tubes and torpedo crane, bicycles on the pier (one being ridden), and buildings, motor buses, large yard cranes and assorted shipyard material in the background. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on the photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: View of the after part of USS Cushing (DD-376), taken at the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 15 July 1942. Note the ship's 5-inch gun mounts, life rafts, and depth charges; Navy pickup truck (serial # 13125) and "Classic Cleaners" delivery van on the pier; and USS Chester (CA-27) in the background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Cushing (DD-376) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 15 July 1942. Official US Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: USS Cushing (DD-376) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 15 July 1942. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Commander William B. Cushing (1842-1874), a Union naval hero during the Civil War, USS Cushing (DD-376) was a 1,465-ton Mahan class destroyer that was built by the Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton, Washington, and was commissioned on 28 August 1936. The ship was sponsored by Miss K.A. Cushing, daughter of Commander Cushing. The ship was approximately 341 feet long and 35 feet wide, had a top speed of 36 knots, and had a crew of 158 officers and men. Cushing was armed with five 5-inch guns, four machine guns (although this was increased after the start of the war), 12 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
After being commissioned, Cushing spent the pre-war years with the US Pacific Fleet. She participated in numerous naval exercises and also was assigned to various patrol and escort duties. She even took part in the mid-ocean search for the missing aviator Amelia Earhart in July 1937. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941, Cushing was completing an overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California. For the first months of the war, Cushing escorted convoys going to and from the United States and Hawaii. She then patrolled off Midway Island and also escorted what was left of the US Pacific battleship force off America’s west coast. By mid-1942, Cushing was sent to the south Pacific and joined the US naval effort to hold Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Cushing was assigned primarily to convoy escort duties, but she also escorted the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.
Less than three weeks later, on the evening of 13 November 1942, Cushing was the lead ship in a column of 13 US warships sent to intercept a Japanese task force that was trying to bombard the only landing strip for aircraft on Guadalcanal, the strategically vital Henderson Field. Some, but not all, of the US ships were guided by a relatively new weapon called radar. Headed straight for them was a Japanese task force of 14 ships, all of which were not equipped with radar. But in the Japanese task force there were the powerful battleships Hiei and Kirishima, while the American task force only possessed several cruisers. At approximately 0141 on the morning of 13 November, Cushing, which did not have radar, suddenly spotted Japanese warships. They were steaming only 3,000 yards away. Cushing’s skipper, Lieutenant Commander A.E. Parker, ordered a quick turn to port to avoid hitting the oncoming enemy warships. Within minutes, all of the Japanese and American warships had run into each other, with only 1,600 yards separating them. Ships started shooting each other at almost point-blank range. Thus began the first major night action of the Naval Battle for Guadalcanal.
Since Cushing was at the head of the American column, she suffered some of the first hits of the battle. According to the famous naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison, “Cushing sent several salvos screaming after a destroyer to starboard, but within two minutes received shell hits amidships which severed all power lines and slowed her down. Her bow was pointing almost due north when her skipper sighted the battleship Hiei on his port beam, on a collision course. Using hand steering control and what little way remained, he swung Cushing right and, by local control, fired six ‘fish’ [torpedoes] at the enemy battlewagon less than half a mile distant. None hit Hiei, which was also the target of destroyer and cruiser gunfire; but she didn’t like it and turned slowly away to the westward. Cushing had only a few moments to exult like David. A probing searchlight beam picked her out and enemy gunfire reduced her to a sinking wreck in short order.”
A brief lull in the shooting gave Cushing an opportunity to fight the many fires on board the ship, but, just as some of the fires were brought under control, several enemy salvos hit her. The ship now was ablaze and at 0315 on 13 November, Lieutenant Commander Parker gave the order to abandon ship. Roughly 70 of Cushing’s crew were killed during the battle, while the rest of the crew (most of them wounded) was recued from the water. The ship itself somehow managed to stay afloat until late in the afternoon of 13 November, when a final explosion in her magazine doomed her and she sank shortly after that. But the Japanese task force was prevented from bombarding Henderson Field that night and the Japanese ships that were not sunk during the battle were forced to leave the area. The battleship Hiei was so badly crippled during that battle that she was not able to retreat and was sunk by US aircraft the following afternoon. Some of the aircraft, ironically, came from Henderson Field.
Although lost during the battle, USS Cushing played an important role in the first major night action in the Naval Battle for Guadalcanal. Cushing received three battle stars for her service in World War II.
