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Photo # NH 63134:  USS Blue at sea, February 1939

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Blue (DD-387), 1937-1942

USS Blue, a 1,500 ton Bagley class destroyer, was built at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia. Commissioned in August 1937, she operated for a year in the western Atlantic and Caribbean, then transferred to the Pacific to join the Battle Fleet. Her base was changed from the west coast to Hawaii in the spring of 1940, and she was moored in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on 7 December 1941.

Blue spent the Pacific War's first weeks patrolling off Pearl Harbor. In January 1942, she was assigned to the task force built around the aircraft carrier Enterprise and participated in raids on Japanese island bases during the next month. Blue then escorted convoys between Hawaii and California until June 1942, when she sailed for New Zealand.

Upon arrival in mid-July, Blue joined the force preparing for the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi, in the southern Solomon Islands. During the 7-8 August landings, she was employed in gunfire support and screening. The destroyer was on picket duty off the northern tip of Guadalcanal on 9 August 1942 when Japanese warships slipped by undetected and delivered a painful defeat to the U.S. and Australian navies in the Battle of Savo Island. Nearly two weeks later, on 22 August, Blue was on patrol off Guadalcanal when she was torpedoed by the Japanese destroyer Kawakaze. Her severely twisted stern prevented towing the damaged ship to nearby Tulagi. USS Blue was scuttled on 23 August 1942, as strong Japanese naval forces approached in the early stages of the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.

This page features selected views of USS Blue (DD-387).

If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 97684

USS Blue (DD-387)


Leaving the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, for builder's trials, 24 August 1937.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 89KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 61680

USS Blue (DD-387)


Photographed circa 1937-40.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 59KB; 740 x 460 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 63134

USS Blue (DD-387)


At sea during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's cruise, 27 February 1939.
Photographed from USS Houston (CA-30).

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 112KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97796

USS Blue (DD-387)


Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 61KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97798

USS Blue (DD-387)


Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 58KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 97797

USS Blue (DD-387)


Off the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 47KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: 19-N-29229

USS Blue (DD-387)
-- outboard, and
USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) -- inboard

At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942.
Among the details visible are: 5"/38 gun mounts; newly-installed 20mm guns; Mk. 33 gun directors atop pilothouses; and stores in boxes on Ralph Talbot's forecastle.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

Online Image: 148KB; 740 x 625 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 19-N-29230

USS Blue (DD-387)
-- outboard, and
USS Ralph Talbot (DD-390) -- inboard

At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 11 April 1942.
Among the details visible are: newly-installed 20mm guns; blowers mounted on deck aft of # 2 5"/38 gun; Mk. 33 gun directors atop pilothouse; radio-direction finding antennas on pilothouse face; and quadruple torpedo tubes amidships.

Photograph from the Bureau of Ships Collection in the U.S. National Archives.

Online Image: 155KB; 605 x 765 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: 80-G-13488

Battle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942


U.S. destroyers remove the crew from the fatally-damaged HMAS Canberra, off Guadalcanal at about 0630 on the morning of 9 August 1942, following the Battle of Savo Island. USS Blue (DD-387) is alongside Canberra's port bow, as USS Patterson (DD-392) approaches from astern.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 73KB; 740 x 620 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

Note:
When Canberra's wreck was discovered and examined in July-August 1992, her "B", "X" and "Y", turrets were trained exactly as seen here, pointing to the port quarter. "A" was then trained on the port bow. "B" turret's roof, present in this view with a 20mm gun tub on top, was completely missing in 1992, and the forward superstructure had collapsed over to starboard.

 
Photo #: NH 97799

USS Blue (DD-387)


"Men wounded in the Battle of Tulagi Island being removed from the USS Blue (DD-387) to the USS Neville (AP-16), 7-8-9 August 1942." (quoted from the original caption).
This photograph was probably taken on 9 August, as Blue was transferring survivors of the Battle of Savo Island, which had taken place during the previous night.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 105KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 61903

USS Blue (DD-387)
, left, and
USS Helm (DD-388)

Ready for christening, in Drydock # Two at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 27 May 1937.
Note that the drydock is already partially flooded.
Blue appears to have her guns and torpedo tubes installed, and both ships' Mark 33 main battery gun directors are in place atop their forward superstructures.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 155KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 


USS Blue is one of the dozens of ships featured in the following chart of Pearl Harbor during the 7 December 1941 Japanese air raid. She is located in the upper right center of the view, among the many destroyers moored in "nests" in the northern part of the harbor.

Photo #: NH 83109

Pearl Harbor Raid, 7 December 1941


Chart showing the positions of ships inside Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese Attack, at about 0800 on 7 December.
The orientation of the compass direction arrow in the chart's center is turned approximately 45 degrees too far in a counterclockwise direction. Some of the ships moored in "nests" in the northern part of the harbor are listed in incorrect order.

Collection of Vice Admiral Homer N. Wallin, USN(Retired), 1975.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 131KB; 915 x 1075 pixels

 


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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Page made 14 October 2001
New images added 6 December 2001