Figure 1: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) off the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, 23 March 1938. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) off the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts, 23 March 1938. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) silhouetted against the sun while off Manhattan Island, New York City, circa 1938. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942. Note that her port side anchor and boat davits have been removed as weight-saving measures. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 5: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) off the Mare Island Navy Yard, 11 April 1942. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 6: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) escorting the Guadalcanal-Tulagi invasion convoy, circa 7-8 August 1942. HMAS Australia is dimly visible in the far right distance, beyond the three destroyers maneuvering there. Photographed by Corp. L.M. Ashman, USMC. US Marine Corps Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 7: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) underway off Honolulu, Hawaii, circa January 1943. This photograph was received by the Bureau of Ships from Pearl Harbor, with a letter of 17 January 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 8: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) underway off Honolulu, Hawaii, circa January 1943. This photograph was received by the Bureau of Ships from Pearl Harbor, with a letter of 17 January 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 9: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) underway in Hawaiian waters, circa January 1943. This photograph was received by the Bureau of Ships from Pearl Harbor, with a letter of 17 January 1943. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 10: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) photograph received by the Bureau of Ships from the Hunter's Point Navy Yard, San Francisco, California, with a letter of 19 May 1944. It was probably taken in San Francisco Bay just prior to that date. Her camouflage scheme is Measure 33, Design 1d. Note US Coast Guard ensign flying from the vessel carrying the photographer. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 11: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 20 March 1946, with harbor tugs alongside and nearby. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 12: USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 20 March 1946, with harbor tugs alongside and a crane barge by her bow. Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the US National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after Second Lieutenant Ralph Talbot (1897-1918), a US Marine Corps pilot who won the Medal of Honor and was killed during World War I, USS Ralph Talbot was a 2,325-ton Bagley class destroyer that was built in the Boston Navy Yard at Boston, Massachusetts, and was commissioned on 14 October 1937. The ship was approximately 341 feet long and 35 feet wide, had a top speed of 35 knots, and had a crew of 158 officers and men. Ralph Talbot was armed with four 5-inch guns, 4 0.5-inch machine guns, 12 21-inch torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
After being commissioned, Ralph Talbot spent the next four years of her career with the US Navy’s Battle Force, which operated mainly in the eastern Pacific. Ralph Talbot was anchored at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, during the Japanese attack on 7 December 1941. As soon as the attack began, crewmembers on board the ship manned her guns and made preparations for getting underway. By 0900, Ralph Talbot raised enough steam to leave the shattered port after shooting down one enemy aircraft. After the attack was over, the ship searched the waters off Hawaii for Japanese submarines. On 14 December, Ralph Talbot was assigned to Task Force 14 on the first of many aircraft carrier escort and screening assignments. In January 1942, Ralph Talbot joined Task Force 8, which participated in raids against Japanese positions on the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. Then in February and March 1942, they attacked Wake and the Marcus Islands.
After returning to Pearl Harbor on 9 March 1942, Ralph Talbot was assigned to Task Force 15. From 19 March to the end of May, the task force escorted convoys between Hawaii and America’s west coast. On 14 June, Ralph Talbot began a journey to Australia and New Zealand and on 22 July the ship joined a major task force bound for Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The task force arrived at Guadalcanal on 7 August and Ralph Talbot began patrolling the area that same day. On 8 August, the ship maintained a patrol station just north of Savo Island and at 0145 in the early morning of 9 August, Ralph Talbot received a radio message that three Japanese warships were heading right for them. Shortly after that, gunfire was seen to the southeast and the first Battle of Savo Island had begun.
Roughly 30 minutes later, Ralph Talbot was mistaken for an enemy warship in the dark and was shelled by an American destroyer. The other American destroyer quickly discovered its mistake and stopped shelling Ralph Talbot, but the accident still caused some damage to the ship. Suddenly, a Japanese cruiser appeared off Ralph Talbot’s port quarter. Both ships opened fire at almost point-blank range. The Japanese cruiser’s searchlights found Ralph Talbot and the larger enemy warship unleashed a torrent of shells against the American destroyer. Ralph Talbot tried to use her own searchlights, but the cables attached to the searchlights had been severed during the accidental skirmish. Soon the Japanese cruiser began scoring hits on Ralph Talbot. One shell hit the chart house and destroyed the ship’s radar equipment. Another hit cut Ralph Talbot’s fire control circuits and ignited several fires on board the ship. Then three more Japanese shells slammed into the destroyer in quick succession, destroying the wardroom and damaging the starboard quarter as well as one of the ship’s 5-inch guns. Twelve of Ralph Talbot’s crewmembers were killed, along with the ship’s doctor and the chief pharmacist’s mate. However, the damage could have been much, much worse.
At 0221 on the morning of 9 August 1942, Ralph Talbot ceased firing. The Japanese cruiser left the area, but the destroyer was in serious trouble. Fire engulfed the bridge and the ship was flooding and listing heavily to starboard. At 0230, all radio communications to and from the ship had ceased and 20 minutes later Ralph Talbot had drifted close to the shore of Savo Island. The crew worked frantically to save its ship, battling the fires that were threatening to sink her. Fortunately by 0330, the crew managed to get both the fires and the flooding under control. The crew then directed all of its efforts to repairing the damage. By 0700, communications were restored and by 1210 most of the repairs (including using mattresses to plug the holes in her hull) were completed to the point where Ralph Talbot was seaworthy enough to limp all the way back to the United States for a major overhaul.
Ralph Talbot arrived at the Mare Island Navy Yard in California on 11 September 1942. After undergoing repairs and a substantial overhaul, Ralph Talbot left Mare Island on 11 November and headed for Hawaii. From there, Ralph Talbot sailed to Australia on 16 December. The ship arrived at Brisbane, Australia, on 2 January 1943. Ralph Talbot conducted training exercises and escorted convoys along the northern and eastern coasts of Australia until 10 May. On 13 May, the ship arrived at Noumea, New Caledonia, to escort more ships heading back to the Solomon Islands. On 30 June, Ralph Talbot participated in the amphibious landings at Rendova, part of the New Georgia offensive in the Solomon Islands. On 30 June, Ralph Talbot rescued 300 survivors from the sinking troop transport USS McCawley (APA-4). On 5 July she bombarded Rendova with her 5-inch guns and on 9 and 11 July participated in the bombardment of the island of Munda. On the evening of 12 to 13 July 1943, Ralph Talbot was part of a task group that intercepted one Japanese cruiser and five destroyers, including several enemy transports, off the coast of Kolombangara. The subsequent Battle of Kolombangara was roughly a draw. Three American cruisers were damaged and one destroyer sunk, while the Japanese lost one cruiser. The American destroyer that was sunk was USS Gwin (DD-433). The ship was seriously damaged during the battle and was unable to move. She eventually had to be sunk by one of Ralph Talbot’s torpedoes to prevent her from possibly being salvaged by the enemy.
Later on in 1943, Ralph Talbot supported amphibious landings in New Britain and in January 1944 participated in the amphibious assaults on New Guinea. Ralph Talbot then was assigned to the central Pacific in mid-1944, where she bombarded enemy positions on the islands of Saipan and Tinian. By late August, Ralph Talbot escorted Task Force 38’s aircraft carriers during attacks on the Bonin Islands, the Palau Islands, Okinawa, Formosa, and the Philippines. She also screened carriers off Cape Engano during the Battle of Leyte Gulf on 25 October 1944.
From January to June 1945, Ralph Talbot participated in the American assaults on northern Luzon in the Philippines, on Iwo Jima, and on the Ryukyus Islands. While on anti-aircraft patrols off the island of Okinawa on 27 April 1945, two Japanese “kamikaze” aircraft spotted Ralph Talbot. Both planes dove for the American destroyer. The first plane smashed into the aft starboard side of the ship. The second plane was a near miss, crashing into the sea off the port quarter. Damage control parties on board the ship eventually brought the fires and the flooding under control and a few minutes after the attack an American patrol craft, PCE-852, pulled alongside the destroyer with a medical officer and seven corpsmen. Ralph Talbot, though, had to go for repairs to the American-held island of Kerama Retto, not far from Okinawa. The tough ship was repaired and remained on duty in the central and western Pacific until the end of the war. At the beginning of September 1945, the Ralph Talbot was present at the surrender of Japanese forces on Truk in the Caroline Islands.
After serving briefly in the occupation of Japan after the war, Ralph Talbot returned to the United States in November 1945. In the spring of 1946, the now worn and battered destroyer was chosen to be one of the target ships for the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Amazingly, Ralph Talbot refused to die even after two atomic bombs were detonated at Bikini in July 1946. However, the destroyer was so contaminated with radioactivity that she had to be sunk. USS Ralph Talbot was eventually scuttled in deep water off Kwajalein Atoll on 8 March 1948. The ship earned 12 battle stars for her service during World War II.
