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USS Kilty (DD-137)
Encyclopedia
USS Kilty (DD–137) was a Wickes class
destroyer
in the United States Navy
. She was the first ship named for Admiral
Augustus Kilty
.
Kilty was launched 25 April 1918 by the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California
; sponsored by Miss Elizabeth Harrison Shapley; and commissioned 17 December 1918, Lieutenant Commander
Timothy Jerome Keleher in command.
shakedown and a Europe
an cruise during the summer of 1919, Kilty returned to San Diego
and operated there until she decommissioned 5 June 1922.
out of San Diego. During the summer, she conducted reserve training cruises and resumed her patrols early in September. The destroyer continued these operations until the United States entered World War II. Then, Kilty intensified ASW patrols, trained armed-guard crews for merchantmen, and escorted coastal convoys throughout 1942.
Reclassified APD-15 on 2 January 1943, Kilty cleared Mare Island 2 March for the South Pacific
. After arriving Noumea
8 April with a Marine Raiders
battalion, the transport steamed toward Guadalcanal
as an ASW screen 28 April. She made similar cruises until June when she reported for patrol and escort duty in the Solomons. Kilty played a vital role in the conquest of the Solomons, landing troops of the 37th Division on New Georgia Island 30 June and 4 July. Continuing operations in the area, she made three reinforcement runs up the "Slot" during July and landed troops on Vella Lavella Island 15 August.
As Allied operations built up momentum, Kilty moved on to the Treasury Islands
Campaign. She successfully landed New Zealand
troops on Stirling Island
27 October and a Marine
force on Bougainville
9 days later, enabling Allied Forces to bypass Rabaul
. Kilty effectively aided this campaign in three more landings before sailing for Brisbane
21 November.
Returning Milne Bay
in mid-December, the transport began preparing for the assault on the Bismarck Archipelago
. Kilty landed units of the 7th Marine Regiment for the initial attack on Cape Gloucester
, New Britain
26 December. Following two more landings there, she sent troops ashore at Saidor 2 January 1944 to take an air strip which would help the Air Force patrol and support Cape Gloucester. Kiltys next objective was Green Island, where she landed troops on 15 and 20 February before returning to Port Purvis.
Following an unopposed assault on Emirau Island
20 March, the transport prepared for the Hollandia
campaign. Completing landings at Aitape
22 April, Kilty then participated in New Guinea
landings, including Wakde
17 May and Biak
10 days later before putting into Humboldt Bay
28 May.
After a minor overhaul at Milne Bay
, she landed troops on Cape Sansopor 30 July before sailing to Sydney
. Returning to Humboldt Bay
30 August, Kilty landed troops on Morotai
15 September to complete her operations in New Guinea area. Kilty departed Hollandia 12 October as part of the spearhead for the giant Leyte assault that bore down on the enemy like a typhoon. In the advance assault force she landed rangers on Dinagat
in the entrance to Leyte Gulf 17 October to pave the way for the main Philippine
invasion. While Kilty was returning to Hollandia 23 October, the U.S. Fleet was crushing the Japanese Navy in the famous battle for Leyte Gulf
.
During another cruise to Leyte in mid-November, the transport splashed two Aichi D3A
"Vals" before they could crash into American LSTs. Continuing operations in the strategic Philippines, Kilty landed troops 15 December in the invasion of Mindoro
, and on 11 January 1945 supported the Luzon
landings. She made additional landings at Nasugbu 31 January and at Corregidor
in mid-February before sailing for Ulithi
25 February for overhaul.
Battle-proven Kilty cleared Ulithi 2 April as escort to four escort carriers ferrying planes to the Okinawa beachhead. During May she made another escort cruise from Saipan
to Okinawa, and on the 4th rescued survivors from sunk during a kamikaze
attack. With the Okinawa campaign well under way, Kilty departed Guam
17 May and arrived San Diego 18 June for overhaul. Redesignated DD-137 on 20 July 1945, Kilty was still in the yard as the war came to an end. The veteran destroyer decommissioned 2 November 1945, and was sold 26 August 1946 to the National Metal & Steel Corporation for scrapping.
As of 2009, no other ship in the United States Navy has borne this name.
Wickes class destroyer
The Wickes-class destroyers were a group of 111 destroyers built by the United States Navy in 1917-1919. Along with the 6 preceding Caldwell class and 155 subsequent Clemson-class destroyers, they formed the "flush-deck" or "four-stack" class. Only a few were completed in time to serve in World...
destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
in the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. She was the first ship named for Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
Augustus Kilty
Augustus Kilty
Rear Admiral Augustus Henry Kilty was a United States Navy officer who served during the Civil War.-Biography:...
.
Kilty was launched 25 April 1918 by the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California
Vallejo, California
Vallejo is the largest city in Solano County, California, United States. The population was 115,942 at the 2010 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area on the northeastern shore of San Pablo Bay...
; sponsored by Miss Elizabeth Harrison Shapley; and commissioned 17 December 1918, Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...
Timothy Jerome Keleher in command.
Service history
After a CaribbeanCaribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
shakedown and a Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an cruise during the summer of 1919, Kilty returned to San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
and operated there until she decommissioned 5 June 1922.
World War II
Kilty recommissioned 18 December 1939, and in April 1940 sailed on Neutrality PatrolNeutrality Patrol
At the beginning of World War II, when Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 started the hostilities in Europe, President Franklin D...
out of San Diego. During the summer, she conducted reserve training cruises and resumed her patrols early in September. The destroyer continued these operations until the United States entered World War II. Then, Kilty intensified ASW patrols, trained armed-guard crews for merchantmen, and escorted coastal convoys throughout 1942.
Reclassified APD-15 on 2 January 1943, Kilty cleared Mare Island 2 March for the South Pacific
South Pacific Area
The South Pacific Area was a multinational U.S.-led military command active during World War II. It was a part of the U.S. Pacific Ocean Areas under Admiral Chester Nimitz.Instructions to the senior U.S...
. After arriving Noumea
Nouméa
Nouméa is the capital city of the French territory of New Caledonia. It is situated on a peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre, and is home to the majority of the island's European, Polynesian , Indonesian, and Vietnamese populations, as well as many Melanesians,...
8 April with a Marine Raiders
Marine Raiders
The Marine Raiders were elite units established by the United States Marine Corps during World War II to conduct amphibious light infantry warfare, particularly in landing in rubber boats and operating behind the lines...
battalion, the transport steamed toward Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal
Guadalcanal is a tropical island in the South-Western Pacific. The largest island in the Solomons, it was discovered by the Spanish expedition of Alvaro de Mendaña in 1568...
as an ASW screen 28 April. She made similar cruises until June when she reported for patrol and escort duty in the Solomons. Kilty played a vital role in the conquest of the Solomons, landing troops of the 37th Division on New Georgia Island 30 June and 4 July. Continuing operations in the area, she made three reinforcement runs up the "Slot" during July and landed troops on Vella Lavella Island 15 August.
As Allied operations built up momentum, Kilty moved on to the Treasury Islands
Treasury Islands
Treasury Islands are a small group of islands a few kilometers to the south of Bougainville and 24 kilometers from the Shortland Islands. They form part of the Western Province of the Solomon Islands. The two largest islands in the Treasuries are Mono Island and the smaller Stirling Island...
Campaign. She successfully landed New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
troops on Stirling Island
Stirling Island
Stirling Island is the smaller island of the Treasury Islands, Solomon Islands, at . It is separated from the largest Mono Island by Blanche Harbor. Stirling Island is composed of coral which was once part of the barrier reef surrounding Mono Island....
27 October and a Marine
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
force on Bougainville
Bougainville Island
Bougainville Island is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. This region is also known as Bougainville Province or the North Solomons. The population of the province is 175,160 , which includes the adjacent island of Buka and assorted outlying islands...
9 days later, enabling Allied Forces to bypass Rabaul
Rabaul
Rabaul is a township in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town was the provincial capital and most important settlement in the province until it was destroyed in 1994 by falling ash of a volcanic eruption. During the eruption, ash was sent thousands of metres into the air and the...
. Kilty effectively aided this campaign in three more landings before sailing for Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
21 November.
Returning Milne Bay
Milne Bay
Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, southeastern Papua New Guinea. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.The area was a site of the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942....
in mid-December, the transport began preparing for the assault on the Bismarck Archipelago
Bismarck Archipelago
The Bismarck Archipelago is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea.-History:...
. Kilty landed units of the 7th Marine Regiment for the initial attack on Cape Gloucester
Cape Gloucester
Cape Gloucester is a headland, in the northwest of the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, at . During World War II, the Japanese captured New Britain, and had driven most of Cape Gloucester's native population out to construct two airfields...
, New Britain
New Britain
New Britain, or Niu Briten, is the largest island in the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It is separated from the island of New Guinea by the Dampier and Vitiaz Straits and from New Ireland by St. George's Channel...
26 December. Following two more landings there, she sent troops ashore at Saidor 2 January 1944 to take an air strip which would help the Air Force patrol and support Cape Gloucester. Kiltys next objective was Green Island, where she landed troops on 15 and 20 February before returning to Port Purvis.
Following an unopposed assault on Emirau Island
Landing on Emirau
The Landing on Emirau was the last of the series of operations that made up Operation Cartwheel, General Douglas MacArthur's strategy for the encirclement of the major Japanese base at Rabaul. A force of nearly 4,000 United States Marines landed on the island of Emirau on 20 March 1944. The island...
20 March, the transport prepared for the Hollandia
Jayapura
Jayapura City is the capital of Papua province, Indonesia, on the island of New Guinea. It is situated on Yos Sudarso Bay . Its approximate population in 2002 was 200,000....
campaign. Completing landings at Aitape
Aitape
Aitape is a small town of about 8,000 people on the north coast of Papua New Guinea in the Sandaun Province. It is a coastal settlement that is almost equidistant from the provincial capitals of Wewak and Vanimo, and marks the midpoint of the highway between these two capitals...
22 April, Kilty then participated in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
landings, including Wakde
Wakde
Wakde is an island of Indonesia, part of the province of West Papua, between the districts of Pantai Timur and Tor Atas.Occupied by Japanese forces in April 1942, Wakde served as an airbase...
17 May and Biak
Biak
Biak features a tropical rainforest climate with nearly identical temperatures throughout the course of the year. The average annual temperature in the city is 27 degrees celsius, which is also generally the average temperature of each day in Biak...
10 days later before putting into Humboldt Bay
Teluk Yos Sudarso
Yos Sudarso Bay also known earlier as Humboldt Bay is a small bay in Indonesia. It is on the north coast of New Guinea, about 50 kilometers west of the border between Indonesia's province of Papua and the country of Papua New Guinea...
28 May.
After a minor overhaul at Milne Bay
Milne Bay
Milne Bay is a large bay in Milne Bay Province, southeastern Papua New Guinea. The bay is named after Sir Alexander Milne.The area was a site of the Battle of Milne Bay in 1942....
, she landed troops on Cape Sansopor 30 July before sailing to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. Returning to Humboldt Bay
Teluk Yos Sudarso
Yos Sudarso Bay also known earlier as Humboldt Bay is a small bay in Indonesia. It is on the north coast of New Guinea, about 50 kilometers west of the border between Indonesia's province of Papua and the country of Papua New Guinea...
30 August, Kilty landed troops on Morotai
Morotai
Morotai Island Regency is a regency of North Maluku province, Indonesia, located on Morotai Island. The population was 54,876 in 2007.-History:...
15 September to complete her operations in New Guinea area. Kilty departed Hollandia 12 October as part of the spearhead for the giant Leyte assault that bore down on the enemy like a typhoon. In the advance assault force she landed rangers on Dinagat
Dinagat Island
' is a province in the Philippines, located on the south side of Leyte Gulf. Leyte is to its west, across Surigao Strait, and Mindanao is to its south...
in the entrance to Leyte Gulf 17 October to pave the way for the main Philippine
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
invasion. While Kilty was returning to Hollandia 23 October, the U.S. Fleet was crushing the Japanese Navy in the famous battle for Leyte Gulf
Battle of Leyte Gulf
The Battle of Leyte Gulf, also called the "Battles for Leyte Gulf", and formerly known as the "Second Battle of the Philippine Sea", is generally considered to be the largest naval battle of World War II and, by some criteria, possibly the largest naval battle in history.It was fought in waters...
.
During another cruise to Leyte in mid-November, the transport splashed two Aichi D3A
Aichi D3A
The , Allied reporting name "Val") was a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy . It was the primary dive bomber in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and participated in almost all actions, including Pearl Harbor....
"Vals" before they could crash into American LSTs. Continuing operations in the strategic Philippines, Kilty landed troops 15 December in the invasion of Mindoro
Mindoro
Mindoro is the seventh-largest island in the Philippines. It is located off the coast of Luzon, and northeast of Palawan. The southern coast of Mindoro forms the northeastern extremum of the Sulu Sea.-History:...
, and on 11 January 1945 supported the Luzon
Luzon
Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines. It is located in the northernmost region of the archipelago, and is also the name for one of the three primary island groups in the country centered on the Island of Luzon...
landings. She made additional landings at Nasugbu 31 January and at Corregidor
Corregidor
Corregidor Island, locally called Isla ng Corregidor, is a lofty island located at the entrance of Manila Bay in southwestern part of Luzon Island in the Philippines. Due to this location, Corregidor was fortified with several coastal artillery and ammunition magazines to defend the entrance of...
in mid-February before sailing for Ulithi
Ulithi
Ulithi is an atoll in the Caroline Islands of the western Pacific Ocean, about 191 km east of Yap. It consists of 40 islets totalling , surrounding a lagoon about long and up to wide—at one of the largest in the world. It is administered by the state of Yap in the Federated States of...
25 February for overhaul.
Battle-proven Kilty cleared Ulithi 2 April as escort to four escort carriers ferrying planes to the Okinawa beachhead. During May she made another escort cruise from Saipan
Saipan
Saipan is the largest island of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands , a chain of 15 tropical islands belonging to the Marianas archipelago in the western Pacific Ocean with a total area of . The 2000 census population was 62,392...
to Okinawa, and on the 4th rescued survivors from sunk during a kamikaze
Kamikaze
The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....
attack. With the Okinawa campaign well under way, Kilty departed Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
17 May and arrived San Diego 18 June for overhaul. Redesignated DD-137 on 20 July 1945, Kilty was still in the yard as the war came to an end. The veteran destroyer decommissioned 2 November 1945, and was sold 26 August 1946 to the National Metal & Steel Corporation for scrapping.
Awards
Kilty received ten battle stars for World War II service.As of 2009, no other ship in the United States Navy has borne this name.