Cool, the photo had sailors on the rails of the California looking at it, calling it the ever elusive DD 214.
I don't even know if they called it a DD214 back then ...
The modern system of hull-classification symbols began in 1920.
Here's a picture of
Wickes-class destroyer USS
Ward a-building in 1918.
[img width=373.949 height=500]https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/485/19231492470_356c610f8f_o.jpg[/img]
Note that she is just "Destroyer 139."
Ward had an interesting history. She was decommissioned in July 1921, then recommissioned in Jan 1941.
She is the ship that fired the first shots on 7 Dec 1941. She was patrolling outside the entrance to Pearl Harbor when she spotted the periscope of a midget submarine trying to follow cargo ship USS
Antares through the opened anti-submarine net into the harbor. Ward hit the conning tower with her gun and dropped depth charges, sinking the 2-man sub, killing both crewmen, who were the first U.S.-inflicted casualties of the Pacific War.
In 1942, she was converted into a high-speed troop transport (APD-16), with the space that had held 2 of her 4 engines now to be used to hold soldiers or marines. She participated in several amphibious campaigns, culminating with the campaign to retake the Philippines. I'll let The Font of All Wisdom and Knowledge tell the rest of the story:
As the Pacific War moved closer to Japan, Ward was assigned to assist with operations to recover the Philippine Islands. On 17 October 1944, she put troops ashore on Dinagat Island during the opening phase of the Leyte invasion. After spending the rest of October and November escorting ships to and from Leyte, in early December, Ward transported Army personnel during the landings at Ormoc Bay, Leyte. On the morning of 7 December, three years to the day after she fired the opening shot of the Pearl Harbor attack, she came under attack by several Japanese kamikazes while patrolling off the invasion area. One bomber hit her hull amidships, bringing her to a dead stop. When the resulting fires could not be controlled, Ward's crew was ordered to abandon ship, and she was sunk by gunfire from O'Brien, whose commanding officer, William W. Outerbridge, had been in command of Ward during her action in Hawaii three years before.
