USS Coolbaugh
1943 Buckley-class destroyer escort
USS Coolbaugh (DE-217) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1960. She was scrapped in 1973.
Namesake
Coolbaugh was named in honor of Lieutenant (junior grade) Walter Wesley Coolbaugh. He was born on 1 August 1914 in Ransom, Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve for aviation training on 14 November 1940. Serving in a scouting squadron in the Pacific, he received the Navy Cross for his conduct in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. Coolbaugh was promoted to lieutenant (junior grade) on 1 October 1942, and lost his life in an aircraft accident on 19 December 1942.
History
USS Coolbaugh was launched 29 May 1943 by Philadelphia Navy Yard; sponsored by Mrs. A. Coolbaugh; and commissioned 15 October 1943.
World War II, 1943–1945
After escorting merchantmen across the Pacific, Coolbaugh reached Efate 8 February 1944, and at once began to serve on patrol and as escort in the Solomons.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 12, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7868557. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1960, 1973 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Coolbaugh” 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.