USS William D. Porter, DD-579

USS William D. Porter in Massacre Bay, Alaska, June 1944.

Some people say that if you can't say something nice, that you shouldn't say anything at all. In many circumstances, this is sound advice, there's really no sense in being overly negative about someone.

But this advice has been ignored for too long on this particular topic, therefore I shall follow suit.

If you've ever read an article, been told a story, or watched a video about this particular ship, there is a very good chance that you've been directly lied to. USS William D. Porter is one of the most wrongly maligned ships in history, up there with the likes of Titanic, Kamchatka, and the entire LCS program. Two notable incidents that are actually documented have been spun over the years into a monstrosity, a farce, a bouquet of bald-faced lies.

I will come back to this pernicious and pervasive myth spreading at the end, try to locate a 'patient zero', and name names of the most egregious perpetrators, I will then analyze the statements of three major perpetrators in this article
While many of these claims come from humor and 'humor' sites and channels, they're very often trotted out whenever the topic of William D. Porter comes around and treated with vastly more credibility than they actually have. This is the age of meme history, and these channels and sites are first in line to spread it around. 

Now to the actual history.

DD-579 was laid down in the great shipyards of the Consolidated Steel Corporation in Orange, Texas on May 7th, 1942. She was launched later that same year on September 27th and was formally commissioned as the USS William D. Porter on July 6th, 1943. Shortly after she conducted her shakedown cruise in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean before steaming to Norfolk and conducting battle practice with the Atlantic Fleet. 

This takes us to November 1943, and the first of the myths and lies that have been spun about the Porter.

November 12th, 1943

USS Porter is moored with the USS Young and USS Cogswell, with Young on Porter's port side and Cogswell on Porter's starboard side.

In the common telling of the story, while departing Norfolk on the 12th Porter dragged her anchor causing a reportedly extensive amount of damage:

'The night before it left Norfolk, Virginia, the W.D. Porter successfully demolished a nearby sister ship when she backed down along the other ship's side and, with her anchor, tore down railings, a life raft, the captain's gig and various other formerly valuable pieces of equipment. The Willie Dee suffered merely a slightly scratched anchor, but her career of mayhem and destruction had begun.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'The trouble started before the boat even left the dock. Specifically, someone forgot to raise the anchor up all the way, and as they backed out ever so slowly, they dragged the anchor along the moored deck of her sister ship. Picture an anchor scraping along railings, lifeboats and thousands of dollars' worth of war sh*t like a coked up toddler in a candy store. Picture the looks on the faces of the newbie sailors as they watched it happen a) on their first day on the job and b) on the way to meet the freaking president.'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'And as its first act under military command, the ship didn't raise anchor properly and tore a massive chunk out of the ship next to it while pulling out.'

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

But this is entirely, totally, and demonstrably false.

The war diaries of all three ships involved are available on the internet (not for free, but that's why I get paid the big bucks), and none of them mention anything like the farcical versions that have been bandied about.

These are logs of the events aboard and around the ship and are highly accurate accounts of the sequence of events on a ship through the day, and none of them mention anything like what's commonly told.

At 1609 hours Porter backs away from Cogswell with a pilot on board, at 1615 a tug helped move Porter over to Young and they were moored again by 1645, with Porter being starboard to port side with Young. After 2300 hours all three destroyers departed the anchorage without any recorded incident.

Here are the relevant pages of the war diaries of each of the involved ships, if you will notice, there is no mention of any sort of mishap involving an anchor, a collision, or missing chunks of ships.

Nothing.

Get used to a lot of nothing in this one.

So, all three destroyers are out of Norfolk and making contact with the USS Iowa, BB-61, carrying president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the Cairo (November 22nd to 26th) and Tehran (November 28th to December 1st) conferences to meet with the likes of Churchill and Stalin to discuss the grand strategic direction of the war.

Here is where one of the actual incidents occurs, and several totally mythical ones.

'The next event occurred just 24 hours later. The four-ship convoy, consisting of the IOWA and her secret passengers, the W.D. porter and two other destroyers, was under strict instruction to maintain complete silence as they were going through U-boat deeding ground where speed and silence were the best defenses. Suddenly, a tremendous explosion rocked the convoy and all of the ships commenced anti-submarine maneuvers. The maneuvers continued until the W.D. Porter sheepishly admitted that one of her depth charges had fallen off the stern and detonated in the rough sea. The safety had not been set as instructed. Captain Walker's fast track career was fast becoming side-tracked.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'Yes, the geniuses on the Willie Dee never got around to disarming their anti-submarine weapons. And on November 12, a live depth charge just fell off the deck. Fell. As in it kind of rolled off, into the ocean, within killing distance of the president of the United States. And it exploded. And that was when sh*t got real.'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'Suddenly Boom! Bang! Borf! Hari Krishna! Huge explosion off the starboard quarter! They're like holy sh*t! Evasive maneuvers! [Whistling] But after however many minutes a transmission comes in saying, 'Uh hi this is Wilfred D. of the Willie Walter I mean uh so a depth charge may have accidentally fallen off the ship, and we may have also forgotten to turn off the safety mechanisms on said charge causing it to detonate.'

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

This is another pack of malarkey and falsehoods. None of the ships, not Iowa, not Young, not Cogswell, and not William D. Porter recorded anything of a lost depth charge that exploded. Another gaping nothing that's been shared about to literally millions of people. 

'Shortly thereafter, a freak wave inundated the W.D. Porter, stripping everything what wasn't lashed down and washing a man overboard who was never found. Next, the engine room lost power in one of its boilers. And, during all, the captain had to make reports almost hourly to the IOWA on the Willie Dee's difficulties. At this point, it would have been merciful for the force commander to have detached the hard luck ship and sent her back to Norfolk'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

`And then, because every single man on the Willie Dee had made a deal with the devil and lost, a freak wave hit the boat, knocking one guy overboard (he was never found) and flooding the boiler room. This resulted in a loss of power, which put the William D. Failure even further behind the rest of the convoy. If it had been us, we would have just quietly turned tail and slipped on back to the States. But they didn't. Even though Admiral Ernest King, who was in charge of the convoy (and getting sick of the problems and hourly damage reports from the Willie Dee), personally radioed Captain Walter, telling him to cut the sh*t out and start acting properly.

Walter vowed to "improve his ship's performance." But of course he didn't, otherwise this list wouldn't exist.'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'Shortly thereafter a strange phenomenon was spotted near the ship.

"Officer! What in the rime of the ancient f*ck is that?"

"It appears to be a large wave sir."

"They have that now!?"

Basically everything that wasn't tied down was swept off and one of the boilers in the engine room got FUBAR'd, but fortunately no crew members were taken away.

Except for the one that was.'

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

This is the first time that any of these popular sources have mentioned anything that actually happened. Porter did suffer a blown boiler tube, but she was a Fletcher class destroyer with four boilers, before the #3 boiler failed she hadn't even lit #4. 
From William D. Porter's war diary: 

From Iowa's war diary:

In less than two hours Porter had made a total recovery and was back on station escorting the battleship.

Next was the loss of James William Morton in heavy seas, which sadly occurred. From the war diary:

Also noted in the Muster Roll for the ship on the 23rd of November, 1943 list of changes:

While these are some events that happened, the way they're presented is highly sensationalized and inaccurate. There were rough seas, but no mention in the logs of the ships of serious damage, or deck-clearing swells. This is a simple exaggeration of the real events, not uncommon in popular retellings of history, but when combined with the array of falsehoods surrounding William D. Porter, it's just another in the litany of lies that have been peddaled.

Of course, there are some fake things as well, such as the Cracked article saying that Admiral King was in charge of the convoy. Admiral King was Chief of Naval Operations at the time, a position that put him in D.C., not on the bridge of a battleship, even one ferrying the president across the Atlantic. While some sources say that several cabinet members were traveling with FDR to the conferences, King still wouldn't have been giving direct orders about the composition of the escort force.

USS Iowa in 1943, painted by Danijel Frka.

Now the big one, the main event, the 'defining moment' of William D. Porter's career (at least for the clickbait creating crowd). 

That one time a crewmember negligently discharged a torpedo towards USS Iowa while FDR was aboard.

November 14th, 1943

At 1400 hours USS Iowa went to air defense stations and began firing at target balloons, at 1436 William D. Porter was engaged in torpedo drills, and a torpedo is fired by accident in the direction of Iowa.

This is the big one, so so there will be a lot of quoting. If you can't abide the idiocy and smugness emanating from some of these, feel free to skip down to when I disassemble them. 

'But that didn't happen. The morning of November 14, 1943 dawned with a moderate sea and pleasant weather. The IOWA and her escorts were just east of Bermuda when the President and his guests wanted to see how the big ship could defend herself against air attack, so the IOWA launched a number of weather balloons to use as antiaircraft targets. Seeing more than 100 guns shooting at the balloons was exciting, and the President was duly proud of his Navy. Just as proud was Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Ernest J. King, large in size and by demeanor a true monarch of the seas. Disagreeing with him meant the end of a Naval Career. Up to this time, no one knew what firing a torpedo at him would mean!

Over on the Willie Dee, Captain Walter watched the fireworks display with admiration and envy. Thinking about career redemption and breaking the hard luck spell, the captain sent his impatient crew to battle stations, and they began to shoot down the balloons that, missed by the IOWA, had drifted into the W.D. Porter's vicinity.

Down on the torpedo mounts, the W.D. Porter's crews watched, waited and prepared to take practice shoots at the big battleship, which, even at 6000 yards seemed to blot out the horizon. Torpedoman Lawton Dawson and Tony Fazio were among those responsible for the torpedoes and for ensuring that the primers (small explosive charges) were installed during actual combat and removed during practice. Dawson, unfortunately, forgot to remove the primer from torpedo tube number three.

Up on the bridge, a new torpedo officer ordered the simulated firing and commanded. "Fire one," "Fire two," and finally, "Fire three." There was no "Fire four." The sequence was interrupted by a whoooooshhh - the unmistakable sound made by a successful armed and launched torpedo.

Lt. H. Seward Lewis, who witnessed (sp) the entire event, later described the next few minutes as what hell would look if it ever broke loose. Just after he saw the torpedo hit the water on its way to the IOWA, where some of the most prominent figures in the world history stood, he innocently asked the captain, "Did you give permission to fire a torpedo?"

Captain Walter uttered something akin to. "Hell, No, I, I iii, aaa, iiiiii - - WHAT?!" Not exactly in keeping with some other famous naval quotes, like John Paul Jones', "I have not yet begun to fight." or even Civil War era RAdm David Glasgos Farragut's, "Damn the torpedoes - full speed ahead!" although the latter would have been more appropriate.

The next five minutes aboard the Willie Dee were pandemonium. Everyone raced around shouting conflicting instructions and attempting to warn the IOWA of imminent danger. First, a flashing light attempted a warning about the torpedo but indicated the wrong direction. Next, the W.D porter signaled that she was going in reverse at full speed.

Despite the strictly enforced radio silence, it was finally decided to notify the IOWA. The radio operator on the destroyer yelled, "Lion (Code word for the IOWA), Lion to come right!" The IOWA operator, more concerned about improper radio procedure, requested that the offending station identify itself first. Finally, the message was received and the IOWA began turning to avoid the speeding torpedo.

Meantime, on the IOWA's bridge, word of the torpedo firing reached President Roosevelt. he only wanted to see the torpedo and asked that his wheelchair be moved to the railing. His loyal Secret Service bodyguard immediately drew his pistol as if to shoot the torpedo!

The IOWA began evasive maneuvers, yet trained all guns on the William D. Porter. There was now some thought that the W.D. Porter was part of an assassination plot. Within moments of the warning, a thunderous explosion occurred behind the IOWA. The torpedo had been detonated by the wash kicked up by the battleship's increased speed. The crisis was over, and so were some careers. Captain Walter's final utterance to the IOWA was in response to a question about the origin of the torpedo. His answer was a weak, "We did it."

Shortly thereafter, the new state-of-the-art destroyer, her ambitious captain and seemingly fumbling crew were placed under arrest and sent to Bermuda for trial. it was the first time in the history of the United States Navy that an entire ship and her company had been arrested. The William D. Porter was surrounded by Marines when it docked in Bermuda and was held there for several days as the closed-session inquiry attempted to find out what had happened.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'So by this point, everyone on the mission was understandably a little skittish. So FDR himself takes the initiative of asking the crew of the Iowa to demonstrate that they could defend themselves if someone other than the idiots at the back of the convoy tried to attack them; specifically, to defend itself if the Iowa were under attack from the air. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he probably imagined the Porter was capable of flying, and he wanted to be ready.

The way this particular drill worked was that the Iowa would release balloons that served as targets for anti-aircraft guns. Fair enough. Until some of the balloons drifted over to the Porter and someone (Captain Walter) thought it was time for redemption. So he ordered his crew to fire on any balloons missed by the Iowa's gunners. That part went fine. Then, feeling cocky, he ordered a practice firing of their torpedoes. And the practice target would be the Iowa.

They announced "Fire one!" and the first fake torpedo was fake fired. "Fire two!" and the second fake torpedo was fake fired. "Fire three!" and a swooshing sound was heard. The crew watched in horror as an actual torpedo left the tube and made a beeline for the Iowa and the president of the United States.

Now, there are occasions when you have to break radio silence, like if for instance something even worse than being discovered by the enemy will happen if you don't. You'd think that "just shot a torpedo at the president" would be one of those times when you have to break the rule for the greater good.

Not according to the brainiacs on the Porter. They decided radio silence trumped the life of their commander in chief and everyone else on board the ship, so they used light signals to warn the Iowa a torpedo was coming. Light signals. Like it was 1775 and they were at the Old North Church waiting for Paul Revere.

But they couldn't even get that part right. The signalman quickly told the Iowa that a torpedo was in the water ... except he said that it was going in the opposite direction. Realizing his mistake, the signalman tried again. This time he completely botched it and accidentally signaled to the Iowa "We're going in reverse full speed." We wouldn't be surprised if the Iowa had a little party at that news.

Finally, someone decided to break radio silence and ordered Iowa to turn right fast. After haggling over who was calling, the Iowa quickly obliged. Obviously the president was panicking, knowing that death could be on its way ... oh wait, no, Roosevelt asked to be rolled over to watch the torpedo action. His Secret Service agents then proceeded to pull their pistols to shoot the torpedo themselves if necessary. Luckily, the torpedo wound up missing the boat, thanks to the Iowa's sharp turn.

This was about the point when Admiral King ordered the Porter to please leave the convoy, lest they try to assassinate the president again. So the crew followed orders and sailed to Bermuda, where they found themselves confronting armed Marines who were there to arrest them. All of them. It was the first time an entire Navy crew had been arrested.

There are worse places to face an inquiry than Bermuda, and after all the appropriate questions were answered, the captain and a few officers were sentenced to shore duty. It could have been much worse. The guy who forgot to disable the torpedo got hard labor, although his sentence was later reduced by Roosevelt himself'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'Later the four ships congregated in the waters east of Bermuda when the Iowa decided to test it's anti air abilities and launched a bunch of weather balloons for target practice. A few of these drifted towards the Willie D and they took some potshots just for fun, probably wrecking some happy albatross households in the process, but Walter was like,

"Men, it's time to redeem ourselves, spit those crayons out don't you know the purple ones are bad for you? Time for some impromptu torpedo drills on the Iowa yay!"

[6 Nautical Moments Later…]

{I literally cannot understand what the heck is said next, which is a blessing since transcribing this garbage is painful}

"Say you guys remembered to take the primer out of all of them before launching right?

"Yes sir"

"Yep"

[Shot of a stick figure eating Elmer's glue]

"What?"

"FFFFFFfff-"

Fortunately, the Iowa didn't have much valuable cargo that could be damaged in the event a torpedo struck, except for 32nd president of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt who was being escorted to Cairo as the whole point of the mission. The next five minutes aboard the Willie D. were just total f*cking chaos. Humid sacks of rice, hogs and bats sniffing each other, massive stereos.

"Commander we really should radio that-"

"NO! I am not breaking any more rules! Do the flashy light thing!"

"Hey incoming signal from old iron brains, they're saying they're… going to reverse at full speed? What?"

{This is just painful, to summarize he repeats that they were all arrested yadda yadda it's all MALARKEY}

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

So what the heck actually went down on that fine November Sunday in 1943?

From Iowa's war diary: 

While Iowa was conducting AA drills, William D. Porter accidentally fires a torpedo at Iowa at 1436 hours, Iowa is informed at 1438 hours and begins emergency maneuvers and accelerates to 28 knots to evade. At 1440 the torpedo strikes Iowa's wake and detonates, as torpedoes were known to do at the time.

At 1458 Porter communicates that the torpedo was an accidental launch, and things settle down, though the incident remains under investigation as was noted in Porter's log:

Of note is that Iowa's log mentions the detonation of a torpedo or depth charge, is it possible this is the source of the lost depth charge myth that was mentioned earlier in this post. But I rather doubt any of the people making that claim ever bothered to look up the war diary (even if Bonner's account got the name of Lt. H.S. Lewis correct), so probably not.

Bonner's account claims that Iowa aimed her main battery guns at William D. Porter because she was presumed to be part of an assassination plot, but this is not backed up in any of the primary source documents. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that it's another total fabrication. 

CTM (AA) Lawson Costello Dawson was court-martialed for his failure to remove the primer that launched the torpedo at Iowa, but what exactly came next isn't clear from the war diaries. It's claimed that FDR pardoned him from his sentence of hard labor, and since that's actually a happy outcome for this (and I've been unable to find anything more substantial), we'll just go with that.

Another thing to consider is that even if the torpedo had managed to hit Iowa, she wouldn't have sunk, despite the hyperbolic claims of so many. While BuShips wasn't satisfied with the torpedo protection on the Iowa class of battleships, it still had a modern multi-layer defensive system, displaced more than 50,000 tons fully loaded, and would have been hit by just one torpedo. There were 10,000 ton treaty cruisers who survived hits by far more powerful torpedoes under far worse conditions.

A cross-sectional view of Iowa's protection scheme, showing the details of her torpedo protection system.

On Monday the 15th at 0915, Desron 100 (Cogswell, Young, and William D. Porter) was released from their ASW assignment by Desron 51 (Hall, Halligan, and Macomb). They proceeded to Bermuda according to plan (not because King demanded that Porter leave the convoy, as is claimed), where the next part of this farce is supposed to have taken place.

Allegedly, there were marines on the pier, and they placed the entire crew of the William D. Porter, about 270 officers and men altogether, under arrest.

Except there is literally no mention of that in the ship's log, or in the logs of the other two ships that were with her at the time.

William D. Porter moored in Bermuda at 1706 hours to the starboard of the USS Halsey Powell (DD-686), next to the USS Altair (AD-11), and at 1719 USS Young moored outboard of Porter. The regular port watch was set at 1727, and there Porter remained, refueling on the 17th and running the #3 (evidently the tubes were patched up/replaced) then the #2 boilers for auxiliary purposes. 

Cutaway drawing of a Fletcher class destroyer, showing the arrangement of their machinery spaces.

You can't just leave a ship of this era idling while the entire crew is arrested, the fact that the ship had boilers running and was taking on fuel indicate that she was crewed at the time. Now it is entirely reasonable that several of the officers and crew were questioned about the torpedo launch, but it's not mentioned in the log, and apart from Dawson no legal ramifications are mentioned for any of Willie D.'s compliment.

Then-Lieutenant Commander Wilfred Aves Walter, captain of William D. Porter, was not removed from command as is often claimed, He remained the commander of the William D. Porter until May 30th, 1944 when he was replaced by Commander C.M. Keyes. Wilfred A. Walter retired from the navy as a rear admiral and commanded other ships after the William D. Porter into the Korean War. He passed away in 1996 at the age of 88.

On the 21st, the commander of Desron 100 moved from Cogswell to William D. Porter, and on the 23rd she departed Bermuda for Norfolk, and from there, to the Pacific.

Well that was a lot of horse hockey wasn't it? The only things that actually happened were the loss of James Morton, the failure of a boiler, the negligent discharge of a torpedo towards Iowa, and the Porter going to Bermuda. Everything else was a total fabrication.

I think it's time for an intermission. While Conrad Thibault performs the classic song Anchors Away (set over some nice footage of the late 1930s US navy), imagine an Indiana Jones style map plot going from Bermuda to Norfolk to Panama up to San Diego and then on to Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

Much better.

Now in Alaska, Willie D. had a fairly uneventful time running anti-submarine patrols with Task Force 94 from the tail end of 1943 into 1944.

On June 10th, 1944, William D. Porter had her first real encounter with an enemy while underway to bombard the Japanese airfield on the island of Matua in the Kuril Chain. At about 0533 hours a surface vessel was detected closing on the American force at more than 55 knots, which was tentatively identified as a Japanese patrol torpedo boat. She opened fire at the target, which shortly after disappeared from the radar scope, very probably it was sunk by gunfire from the task force.

This pattern of bombardment of far northern Japanese bases continued, but there is another total fabrication that's been attached to the history of William D. Porter about her time while in the northern Pacific.

' The destroyer next found herself in the upper Aleutians on patrol. It was probably thought that this was as safe a place as any for the destroyer and those around here. But before being reassigned to another area in the Pacific, she accidentally, but of course successfully, lobbed a 5-inch shell into the front yard of the American base commandant.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'After surviving in the freezing cold for nearly a year with nary a disaster, everything was going well. Right up until they were about to leave for reassignment, that is. One of the sailors on board had gotten drunk and decided to give the big guns a whirl. Unfortunately for that sailor, the shell was steered by the powers of bad luck right into the base commander's front yard, exploding in his flower garden, obviously ruining the flowers and further demolishing what was left of the ship's reputation.

This would have been bad enough, except the sailor fired it while the commander had other officers and their wives over for a party.'

 

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'This went on mostly without incident except for when they were anchored outside an officer's home during a new years eve party and a sailor got drunk and decided to fire off one of the 5 inch guns for a laugh and ended up sending a bunch of his geraniums to hell where they belonged. Other than that smooth sailing.'

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

The war diary for Willie D. isn't available for December 1943, which is the only time this could have happened according to these accounts, but the diary isn't needed to show how absurd this claim is. All that is needed for that is to look at the order of operations to call up a shell, load it, and fire it on a Fletcher class destroyer. 

Diagram of the crew positions of a single enclosed 5''/38 gun mount like was carried by American destroyers.

A crew of eleven men were needed to properly operate the enclosed base ring mounts on a Fletcher, which involved the use of the ammunition hoist, the shell and powder rammer, and the training and elevation for the gun if under local control.

Ammunition was separate in a Fletcher class, meaning that a shell and a bag containing powder came up through the hoist, which required a crew of men in the handling room to pull the shells and powder and pass them up. Not something that would happen if a ship was moored with crew on leave to get drunk in a nearby town. 
Then you have the second issue, which is that somehow a totally hammered, entirely sloshed, completely inebriated sailor managed to make it back onto the ship from a night of drinking without being intercepted by the deck officer, or any of his shipmates. And he's supposed to have made it to a gun mount, got it loaded with a shell and powder in the correct order, then gotten it to fire locally, and then managed to evade all apparent consequences for this act as there are no apparent records of any disciplinary action. 

This is how I know none of these people read anything beyond other clickbait to write their own clickbait, since this isn't rocket science to conclude based on even basic knowledge of the operation of a 5 inch gun mount.

So it's entirely reasonable to conclude that this claim is entirely malarkey.

After her time in Alaska, Willie D. went in for overhaul in San Diego before heading into the Western Pacific for the Philippines Campaign. She arrived too late for the invasion of Leyte, but engaged Japanese aircraft on a handful of occasions through the end of 1944, splashing at least three planes and assisting with the downing of several more.

There are no apparent myths about William D. Porter's service in the Philippines, but her next, and final, assignment off Okinawa has a few.  

'When the William D. Porter later joined the other ships off Okinawa, the destroyer did distinguish herself by shooting down a variety of Japanese aircraft and, reportedly three American planes! She was generally greeted by, "Don't shoot, we're Republicans." and the drew of the Willie Dee had become used to the ribbing. However, the crew members of a sister ship, the USS Luce, were not so polite in their greetings after the W.D. Porter accidentally riddled her side and superstructure with gunfire.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'By 1945, the ship's reputation had not improved. Her crew was often welcomed with the phrase "Don't shoot! We're Republicans!" and raucous laughter. Her reputation sank even lower after she riddled another sister ship with gunfire during the early stages of the Battle of Okinawa.

Finally, the Porter was stationed on the perimeter of the battle, where they were sure to not kill anyone. And they actually did alright out there. They used their anti-sub and anti-aircraft weapons correctly, avoided sinking allied ships, shot down five Japanese planes and never once attempted to assassinate the president. Not bad, all things considered. Being the USS William D. Porter, however, you know this fairy tale wouldn't last.'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

At Okinawa as part of Task Force 54, William D. Porter bombarded shore targets and guarded against submarine and air attack, reportedly expending 8,500 5'' shells from April 1st to May 5th, claiming another five aircraft shot down.

There is no evidence of the claim that Porter shot up another destroyer (USS Luce, DD-522) in documents from either ship, though the book about USS Luce [DD 522: Diary of a destroyer: the action saga of the USS Luce from the Aleutian and Philippine campaigns to her sinking off Okinawa by Ron Surrels] isn't available to be used as a source at the current time.

So it's possible that there was an incident where William D. Porter ended up hitting another American ship with gunfire, but there isn't anything substantial for it, and it's probable that such hits weren't uncommon considering the massive barrages of AA fire that were being sent up by American warships at this stage of the war.

Another claim that often comes up is that Porter shot down several American airplanes, and while this isn't mentioned in any documents or credible histories I've been able to find, it's not improbable that American fighters perusing Japanese planes into heavy AA fire would have been knocked down by Porter as well. Anti-aircraft work wasn't a precision operation in 1945, these things happened. 

June 10th, 1945

For early warning of incoming waves of suicide attackers, the US Navy stationed destroyers in a ring around the island of Okinawa to vector in fighter aircraft to intercept. These radar pickets were dangerous stations, according to Robin L. Rielly's book Kamikazes, Corsairs, and Picket Ships: Okinawa, 1945:

'Out of 101 DDs, DMs, and DMSs assigned to radar picket stations, 10 were sunk and 32 were damaged by kamikaze attacks. The 88 LCS(L)s assigned to picket stations had 2 sunk and 11 damaged by kamikazes, whereas the 11 LSM(R)s had the highest casualty rate from kamikaze hits with 3 sunk and 2 damaged.'

Here is where the last act of William D. Porter's service played out, and it too has been misrepresented in popular history.

'On June 10, 1945, the hard luck ship met her end. A Japanese "Val" bomber constructed almost entirely of wood and canvas slipped through the defenses. As it had very little metal surface, the bomber was not unlike our present-day stealth planes. It did not register on radar. A fully loaded kamikaze, the bomber headed for a ship near the W.D. Porter but, at the last moment, veered away and crashed alongside the unlucky destroyer. There was a sigh of relief as the plane sank out of sight without exploding. Unfortunately, it then blew up underneath the destroyer and opened up the ship's hull in the worse possible location.

Three hours later, the last man, the captain, jumped to safety of a rescue vessel, leaving the ship that almost changed the face of the world and national politics to slip stern first into 2,400 feet of water. Miraculously, not a single soul was lost in this sinking. It was almost as if the ship that had been so unlucky chose to let her crew live. The sage of the USS William D. Porter was over.'

• The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER

                       Kit Bonner, The Retired Officer Magazine, March 1994

'Among the enemy planes were wood and canvas bombers -- there was so little metal on the Japanese planes that they easily slipped past radar. So when this one plane aimed for a ship near the Porter, the Porter took evasive maneuvers. YAY! SUCCESS! FINALLY! The plane crashed into the ocean without exploding, and the high-five party began.

Sadly, three more ships exploded during the party, but everyone agreed it was totally worth it.

What they didn't realize was that the kamikaze plane kept on its trajectory under water -- then exploded beneath the Willie Dee, with the force of the explosion lifting the destroyer smack out of the ocean.

In other words, the ship was accidentally killed by an airplane that had already crashed.

That spelled the end for what was the most hilariously incompetent ship in the history of the world. It sank three hours later, without the loss of a single crew member. We think the Porter kept them alive so they would forever have to live with the fact that they served on the Porter.'

• The 5 Craziest War Stories (All Happened on the Same Ship)

                       Xavier Jackson, Cracked, February 19, 2012

'Until June 10th, 1945 when a kamikaze began to dive towards them. They weren't able to shoot  it down, probably because it wasn't American, but it crashed into the water some ways away. They were like 'phew crisis averter' and thy turned their attention elsewhere, unintentionally driving right over where the bomber landed. The plane was like 'the hell? Oh sh*t that's right. [coughing] Uh, 'banzai''.

About three hours of desperate repairs went by before the order to abandon ship was given and miraculously every crew member made it out alive by the time the ship sank just 12 minutes later.'

• World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

                       Sam O'Nella, YouTube, January 29th, 2020

What actually happened then?

At 0850 hours a Val dive bomber, obsolete for its intended role but very effective in the suicide attack mission it was pressed into, dove towards the ship. Combined AA fire and evasive maneuvers threw the attacker off, and the Val impacted the ocean nearby the ship's beam. It didn't detonate on impact but continued on until it was below the ship when it exploded. 

A Type 99, D3A 'Val' dive bomber in flight. Note the segmented canopy, radial engine, and fixed landing gear.

The explosion of the plane and its bomb busted steam lines, caused a loss of power, several fires, and extensive flooding. Indeed, her crew worked valiantly to save their ship for three hours, battling fires and staving off flooding, but a destroyer is a lightly built ship and the damage was too severe.

Shortly before noon, the order to abandon ship was given, 12 minutes later William D. Porter rolled onto her starboard side and sank. There were no fatalities from the attack or sinking, and every man aboard was taken off by LCS-86 and LCS-122. 

William D. Porter listing to starboard, with LCS-86 up front and LCS-122 behind on her port side. 

Of note, lieutenant Richard M. McCool, the commander of LCS-122 was awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts in saving the crew of William D. Porter, and his actions the next day when his LCS was struck by another suicide plane.

'For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the USS LCS(L)(3)-122 during operations against enemy Japanese forces in the Ryukyu chain, 10 and 11 June 1945. Sharply vigilant during hostile air raids against Allied ships on radar picket duty off Okinawa on 10 June, Lt. McCool aided materially in evacuating all survivors from a sinking destroyer which had sustained mortal damage under the devastating attacks. When his own craft was attacked simultaneously by 2 of the enemy's suicide squadron early in the evening of 11 June, he instantly hurled the full power of his gun batteries against the plunging aircraft, shooting down the first and damaging the second before it crashed his station in the conning tower and engulfed the immediate area in a mass of flames. Although suffering from shrapnel wounds and painful burns, he rallied his concussion-shocked crew and initiated vigorous firefighting measures and then proceeded to the rescue of several trapped in a blazing compartment, subsequently carrying 1 man to safety despite the excruciating pain of additional severe burns. Unmindful of all personal danger, he continued his efforts without respite until aid arrived from other ships and he was evacuated. By his staunch leadership, capable direction, and indomitable determination throughout the crisis, Lt. McCool saved the lives of many who otherwise might have perished and contributed materially to the saving of his ship for further combat service. His valiant spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of extreme peril sustains and enhances the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.'

• Lieutenant McCool CMOH Citation

For her WWII service, William D. Porter was awarded four battle stars.

Now to the lies.

The Achi D3A 'Val' was an all-metal, low wing, monoplane dive bomber. It's entirely reasonable that it was difficult to shoot it down when it started its dive from high altitude since the change in range is so rapid that it's difficult to compute a firing solution, even for the highly integrated 5'' batteries on destroyers. Additionally, it was recorded as coming out of the clouds, that would mean that the visually aimed AA guns, such as the 20mm Oerlikon cannons wouldn't be able to spot and engage until it was very close. So from the available information it's probable that the plane was detected and engaged, but wasn't critically damaged so that it crashed at a safe distance.

There were Japanese attack aircraft that were mostly made of wood though, which did manage to sink warships, such as the Yokosuka K5Y that hit and sank the USS Callaghan (DD-792) on July 9th, 1945. It was able to close the range before being detected, and it's light construction was able to help it evade the proximity fuses of the destroyer's shells before it hit.

On June 10th, there were no other recorded hits on ships in William D. Porter's picket group, which is a total fabrication of the Cracked article. It also seems that there were no other hits on Allied ships on June 10th at all, which makes the claim of other blown up ships even more abundantly false. 

A series of photographs showing the sinking of William D. Porter. 

CONCLUSION

So, what can be concluded about the history of William D. Porter? Is her reputation of horrible luck, bone-headed mistakes, and a humiliating end deserved?

Absolutely not.

As has been shown, most of the events that are attributed to the involvement of William D. Porter are totally fabricated, and if they aren't simply made up they're gross exaggerations of the actual events.

POINTING FINGERS AND NAMING NAMES

So, if the popular history is bunk, who is to blame for the origin of it, and who is to blame for the continued distribution of it?

I'm inclined to point to 'The Ill-Fated USS WILLIAM D. PORTER' by Kit Bonner, published in The Retired Officer Magazine back in March 1994 as the metaphorical 'patient zero'. The first snapshot of this article I've found on the Wayback Machine is from April 10th, 1998 and the copyright on that page is 1998. A ship's reunion from 1958 is pointed to in the first paragraph, but that is the only actual source listed in the article, and it's more of an explanation of the 'Don't Shoot, We're Republicans' greeting that was so often directed to the ship and her crew (Which might well have been a real thing, it doesn't show in the war diary, but it makes sense and it's based on something that actually happened).

Kit Bonner is a naval historian who has written a few articles, what look to be some fairly basic books with widely varied ratings (including one that looks like clickbait in print form [Great Ship Disasters, 2003)], and served as a technical advisor for the James Cameron Titanic movie. The most recent book on Amazon from him is from 2008 (USS Missouri at War), and it includes a brief biography.

'Kit Bonner and Carolyn Bonner are naval historians and photographers. They have authored or co-authored numerous books, including USS Iowa at War, Modern Warships, Great Ship Disasters, Warship Boneyards, Cold War at Sea,  and Great Naval Disasters. Kit was the naval consultant for the 1997 blockbuster film, Titanic. The Bonners live in Ione, California.'

I have read none of these books, and rather doubt I will based on the reports of factual errors (what a surprise that is), unless it's to review them in the future.

Now to Xavier Jackson's history. He's written 47 articles for Cracked.com, mostly clickbait on historical topics from August 2011 to May 2017, and has not written anything since then. His Twitter account has been inactive since March 2017, and his website linked in his description is also dead. While his article about William D. Porter is garbage, I do hope he's doing well for himself these days, hopefully writing better things than that.

Now to the last one to be accused, and the one who directly inspired this article. Sam O'Nella Academy.

The video sucks. Despite the availability of information disproving more than half of the things talked about, he spouted old myths and clearly never bothered to look past the easiest things to read and understand in the Wikipedia article for William D. Porter.

Almost every source I pulled from is also linked at the end of the article, it is all accessible, I don't have some obscure or forbidden fount of wisdom for what I write here. Which makes the blatant lies all the more infuriating when you see that he cites no sources, and at the time of this writing the video has taken as high as #40 on the YouTube trending tab, and had (as of 1300 hours Mountain Standard Time, 2/1/2020) 1,543,509 views, 133 thousand likes, and 7,155 comments.

His videos are very stylized with stick figures and crude traces of objects such as ships, which is reasonable considering the objective of the channel is to briefly cover some historical or scientific topics for the general public. That's not a terrible objective, almost noble even, but I personally don't like the style and the very inaccurate visuals that were used. But it's a style and I'm here to criticize the content not so much the means of presentation.

I award this video no points, it's terrible in every way but one. The joke, 'Humid sacks of rice, hogs and bats sniffing each other, massive stereos!' was actually funny. But then it made me think of Ghostbusters which is actually good, and then I got sad.

There are other videos about the Willie D, and other articles, most all of them are of the same very dubious historical quality as the ones used here. These include the YouTube videos by The History Guy, Lessons from the Internet, History in the Dark, Bad Ideas Podcast, canibalchickens, Packrat Garage, and in French by Odieux Connard.

Credit to Potential History though, since he at least mentioned that a lot of the stories about Willie D. are unsubstantiated. Despite this, his video is somewhat sensationalized in how it's presented, but there is… Potential in his format.

I have found one good video about William D. Porter are out there, made by the user Drachinifel on YouTube who dispels several of these same myths and fabrications in his video which is linked here: 

That concludes this defense of the most unfairly maligned ship in the US Navy. Hopefully, these myths will dispel soon with at least a few people doing the legwork to prove them false. 

Rest well Willie D., you've earned it.

Sources:

War Diaries of:

USS William D. Porter

USS Young

USS Cogswell

USS Luce

USS Iowa

All sourced from Fold3.com

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/w/william-d-porter.html - US Navy Official Ship History of USS William D. Porter.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/y/young-ii.html - US Navy Official Ship History of USS Young.

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/c/cogswell.html - US Navy Official Ship History of USS Cogswell.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/579.htm - Photos of William D. Porter.

Information about the operation of 5'' mounts like those on William D. Porter.

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-38_mk12.php

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-38_mk12_Crews.php

http://archive.hnsa.org/doc/destroyer/fiveinch/index.htm

https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/l/luce-ii.html - US Navy Official Ship History of USS Luce.

http://www.kamikazeimages.net/books/general/rielly/index.htm - Information about radar picket ship losses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Miles_McCool - Lt. McCool's CMOH Citation.

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B001IXOB3K?_encoding=UTF8&node=283155&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-pages-popularity-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader - Kit Bonner's books.

Targets:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080612075327/http://www.ussiowa.org/general/html/willie_d.htm

https://www.cracked.com/article_19637_the-5-craziest-war-stories-all-happened-same-ship.html

World War II's Unluckiest Ship, the William D. Porter

Other Bad Articles:

https://taskandpurpose.com/wwii-naval-ship-unlucky-almost-killed-fdr

Article subject to revision and expansion as more information is confirmed.