USS Donnell
1943 Buckley-class destroyer escort
USS Donnell (DE-56), a Buckley-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1945. She was scrapped in 1946.
History
Donnell was named in honor of Ensign Earl Roe Donnell (1918–1942), who was killed in action while serving in Scouting Squadron 6 aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise (CV-6) during an attack on the Marshall Islands on 6 February 1942. Donnell was laid down on 27 November 1942 at the Bethlehem Steel Company shipyard, at Hingham, Massachusetts, launched on 13 March 1943, sponsored by Mrs. E. R. Donnell, mother of Ensign Donnell, and commissioned on 26 June 1943.
Battle of the Atlantic
Donnell sailed from Boston on 31 August 1943 for trans-Atlantic convoy duty. She guarded the safe passage of four convoys to Derry and return in the buildup for the invasion of Europe in June. At sea bound for Derry again on her fifth voyage, on 3 May 1944 Donnell made a sound contact, then sighted a periscope a few minutes later and pressed home a depth charge attack on U-473. Simultaneously she was struck by a torpedo which blew off her stern. Explosion of her own depth charges inflicted additional damage on the escort.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Donnell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.