Class: Fletcher Destroyer
Launched: September 9, 1943
At: Bethlehem Steel Corporation Yard, San Pedro, California
Commissioned: December 31, 1943
Length: 376 feet, 6 inches
Beam: 39 feet, 6 inches
Draft: 17 feet, 9 inches
Displacement: 2,050 tons
Armament: (1950s) Five 5-inch/38 caliber guns, ten 40mm guns, hedgehogs, Mk 9 depth charges, Mk 32 homing torpedoes and Mk 15 anti-ship torpedoes
Address:
Boston National Historical Park
Charlestown Navy Yard
Boston, Massachusetts 02129-4543
(617) 242-5601
Fax: (617)-241-0884
http://www.nps.gov/bost/historyculture/usscassinyoung.htm
Latitude: 42.372181, Longitude: -71.054471
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Representative of 14 Fletcher class destroyers built at the Charlestown Navy Yard, USS Cassin Young exemplifies the intense military-industrial effort that greatly contributed to the Allied victory in World War II. Named for a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Cassin Young first saw action in the Pacific in April 1944. The ship rescued some 120 survivors of the stricken carrier USS Princeton in October 1944, and carries a commemorative plaque presented by those grateful sailors. But it was on the picket line off Okinawa that she truly distinguished herself, surviving two separate hits by Japanese kamikazes. Although the second attack, on July 30, 1945, killed 22 and wounded twice as many and totally disabled the ship, the heroic efforts of her crew saved the ship.
Decommissioned in 1946, Cassin Young returned to duty in 1951. For the rest of the 1950s, she served primarily in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. She entered the reserve fleet for a second time in 1960. She was transferred to the National Park Service for use as a museum ship in June 1978.
USS Cassin Young is a National Historic Landmark.
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