USS Stephen Potter (DD-538), a , was a ship of the United States Navy. Stephen Potter was commissioned in 1943 and served in the Pacific during World War II. She was then mothballed until 1951 whereupon she saw service in several areas including the Korean War. In 1958 she was placed in reserve, and scrapped in 1973. Namesake Stephen Potter was born on 26 December 1896 in Saginaw, Michigan. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and was then a member of the second Yale University unit which left college in April 1917 to enter naval aviation. He trained with Volunteer Aerial Coast Patrol Unit No. 2 at Buffalo, New York, and was commissioned Ensign on 2 November 1917. He volunteered to go overseas immediately and was assigned to the Advanced School at Montchic, Gironde, France. He was later assigned to the British Royal Naval Air Station at Felixstowe, England. On 25 April 1918 he flew from the North Sea Station in company with another plane. The pair spotted two German seaplanes, one of them piloted by Oberleutnant zur See Friedrich Christiansen with observer Bernhard Wladika, heading toward them approximately from North Hinder Light. Five additional German planes joined them and together the seven German combatants attacked the two British aircraft. Potter was killed after his plane was shot down by Christiansen's observer Wladika in the ensuing action. Construction and commissioning Stephen Potter (DD-538) was laid down on 27 October 1942 by the Bethlehem Steel Co., San Francisco, California; launched on 28 April 1943; sponsored by Sally and Marian Potter, nieces of Ensign Potter; and commissioned on 21 October 1943. Stephen Potter held its shakedown in the San Diego area and returned to San Francisco on 8 December. The ship sailed for Hawaii late in the month and arrived at Pearl Harbor on the last day of 1943. The destroyer was assigned to the Fast Carrier Task Force (called TF 58 or TF 38, depending on whether it was part of the 5th Fleet or 3rd Fleet) which sortied, on 16 January 1944, to launch air strikes against the Marshall Islands. Strikes began on 29 January in preparation for the amphibious assault which began on 31 January. 1944 Stephen Potter was in the screen of the fast carriers when they made the first strike against Truk on 17 and 18 February 1944. was damaged on the 17th by an aircraft torpedo, and