USS Whitehurst (DE-634): A Followup on Iowa's Norman Ellsworth-- Part 1

From Wikipedia.

On April 18th, I wrote about Norman Ellsworth who died aboard the destroyer escort Whitehurst off Okinawa during a kamihaze attack. Here is a followup on the ship.

The USS Whitehurst (DE-634) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort commissioned 19 November 1943 and named for Henry Purefoy Whitehurst, an ensign on the USS Astoria (CA-34) who was killed at the Battle of Savo Island off Guadalcanal in August 1942.

The ship arrived at Pearl Harbor 4 Feb 1944 and served convoy duty around the Pacific. It was off New Guinea and saw action at Wake Island and continued with escort duty.

Before the Philippines, it was assigned to the anti-submarine/aircraft screen TU77.7.1 to guard fleet oilers and on Oct. 27, 1944, drove off two Japanese planes.

--GreGen