Of the 175 Fletcher (DD-445)-class destroyers completed during World War II, the majority were built to the configuration shown here for the Hazelwood, (DD-531), with an enlarged open bridge and a main battery gun director lowered six feet to compensate for the weight of their heavy antiaircraft battery. They carried five twin 40-mm and ten single 20-mm guns, without sacrificing the two quintuple torpedo tube mounts used for traditional surface torpedo attacks. All the Fletchers served exclusively in the Pacific during the war, and the Hazelwood had a typically distinguished career. She earned ten Battle Stars for combat actions that began in September 1943 escorting carrier attacks against Tarawa and the Gilbert Islands, to the invasion of the Gilberts that November; patrol and shore bombardment duties in the Solomons and Marshalls early in 1944 and the Palaus and Peleliu in September; the invasion of the Philippines in October; strikes against the Ryukyus, Formosa, Okinawa, and the China coast in January 1945; and attacks on mainland Japan and Okinawa the following month. On 29 April 1945, the Hazelwood’s war came to a tragic halt when a kamikaze exploded against the bridge, with 77 crew lost and another 35 missing. The Hazelwood made it to Mare Island Naval Shipyard, California, under her own power for repairs and the installation of an even heavier antiaircraft battery, but the work was not completed until after the armistice, and the ship went into reserve on 18 January 1946. The Hazelwood was reactivated in 1951 for service during the Korean War, completed an around-the-world tour of duty in July 1954, and was in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis in 1956. In 1958, she joined the Atlantic Fleet Destroyer Development Division and was later reconfigured as the primary trials ship for the DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) program. The first DASH takeoff from a ship was from the Hazelwood on 1 July 1960. Two of the five 5-inch gunhouses were removed and replaced by a hangar and flight deck for the DSN-1 drone, which was to be remotely controlled to distant submarine targets, where it would drop a homing torpedo. Unfortunately, DASH was never made reliable in U.S. Navy service, and of the 746 bought, more than half were lost at sea. The Hazelwood was decommissioned on 19 March 1965 and stricken on 1 December 1974.
The Hazelwood on 30 August 1943, prior to departing for the Western Pacific.
After the kamikaze hit at Okinawa, the Hazelwood was patched up at Ulithi Atoll and again at Pearl Harbor before proceeding to California for permanent repairs; she is being conned from the director platform surrounding the remaining stack in this 14 June 1945 view.
As DASH trials ship, the Hazelwood carried three single 5-inch guns, two triple antisubmarine torpedo tube sets, two Hedgehog mortars, and a depth charge rack. Unique for a Fletcher, she was fitted with AN/SPS-28 air-search radar to help in tracking the drone, which had a 28- nautical-mile radius in its final version.