Tin Can Sailors - The National Association of Destroyer Veterans

The USS MEREDITH (DD‑726) was launched on 21 December 1943 at the Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, and was commissioned on 14 March 1944, with Cdr. George Knuepfer as her captain. After shakedown off Bermuda, she left Boston on 8 May 1944 as an escort with a convoy bound for Plymouth, England, and Operation Neptune, the invasion of Normandy. She arrived on the 27^th and began preparing for her role in the upcoming channel crossing of more than 4,000 ships. With the BARTON, WALKE, LAFFEY, and O’BRIEN, she was part of a seventeen-destroyer reserve fire support group that would accompany troop transports and supply ships to positions a dozen or so miles off Utah and Omaha Beaches. They arrived in the transport area early on the morning of 6 June 1944, D-Day, and well before dawn moved in toward shore to their fire support stations. With battleships, cruisers, and fellow destroyers, the Meredith began her preliminary bombardment at 0600 and half an hour later landing craft headed for Utah Beach.

Meanwhile, German planes were busy over Utah Beach, dropping mines that currents rapidly distributed along the coast. The morning after D-Day, the MEREDITH patrolled the treacherous waters on the lookout for mines and PT-type E-boats. The danger was driven home when mines claimed the destroyer CORRY and a troopship off Utah Beach. The next day, three more destroyers would be lost to mines. The first was the MEREDITH.

Shortly after 0100 on 8 June, the MEREDITH was with several other Allied destroyers and destroyer escorts, screening the heavy warships, northwest of Utah Beach, when a flight of enemy planes passed by. The Allied ships opened fire, but did not deter them from their mission to sow the area waters with magnetic and contact mines. Steaming through the near-pitch black night, the MEREDITH struck a mine floating well below the surface.

According to her captain, quoted by Theodore Roscoe in Destroyer Operations in World War II, “the explosion appeared to have occurred deep down in the ship on the port side amidships. It vented itself upward and outward on the main deck and the ship’s side over the after fireroom. ¼ There was a total absence of any flash, smoke, or flame ¼,” but the explosion shook the MEREDITH, and “a huge geyser of water drenched the entire forward part of the ship, and falling debris rained upon the open bridge.¼ All power and lighting were lost immediately; the ship stopped dead in the water, turning slowly to starboard.¼”

By 0220 the destroyer had settled deeper and had a 12-degree starboard list, which put that side of the main deck in the water. After receiving a report on the condition of the ship and injured members of his crew, Commander George Knuepfer ordered all hands to the main deck “to stand by the life floats and nets.” As the MEREDITH drifted toward shore where she would soon come under enemy guns, the captain ordered the transfer of the crew to the destroyer JEFFERS and destroyer escort BATES, along with Patrol vessels PCs 1263 and 1232, which stood by to take of survivors. The two rescue ships remained by the crippled destroyer to await morning and the possibility of salvaging her.

As dawn approached, the MEREDITH’s list had increased to 15 degrees, and she had drifted within range of enemy shore batteries at Cape Barfleur. A crew of volunteers went aboard to jettison whatever could be removed until her list was reduced enough for the JEFFERS to rig a tow line and pull her away from shore. At about 0515, the DD handed her over to a pair of salvage tugs that towed her to an anchorage in the Bay of the Seine. The MEREDITH’s crew and that of the salvage tug BANNOCK worked through the day and into late evening when at about 2030, they took a much needed rest.

The MEREDITH made it to another dawn, but with the morning came enemy bombers, one of which put a 2,000-pound bomb 800 yards off her port bow. The huge blast delivered a jarring blow to the damaged destroyer, but she appeared to have withstood the shock as far as could be determined by the salvage crew from the BANNOCK, which was tied alongside. They resumed their work at 0730, but at 1010, without warning, the destroyer broke in two, undoubtedly a result of the opening of seams weakened by the bomb blast earlier that morning. The BANNOCK cut free, but stayed close to pick up the men who had been working aboard the MEREDITH, all of whom were rescued. In minutes, she was gone. In all, two officers and 33 men were killed when the ship hit the mine; 322 officers and men, including 26 wounded were saved. That same day, not far from where the MEREDITH went down, the destroyer GLENNON and destroyer escort RICH were also sunk by mines.

The final chapter in the story of the MEREDITH was not written until 5 August 1960, when her sunken hulk was raised by a French company and was sold for scrap the following month. The MEREDITH received one battle star for her World War II service.