USS Wiley (DD-597), was a Fletcher-class destroyer of the United States Navy. Namesake William Wiley was a sailor who served in the First Barbary War. Besides a few details of his service in the Navy, little is known of the life of William Wiley. He entered the Navy on 2 April 1803 and was assigned to the schooner in the Mediterranean Squadron. After attaining the rates of boatswain, boatswain's mate, and then a reduction to quartermaster, Wiley took part in the daring raid led by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr., in the ketch at Tripoli harbor on 16 February 1804, destroying the frigate which had been captured by the Tripolitean pirates. Quartermaster Wiley was transferred to the brig soon thereafter, and this is where his documentary trail ends. Construction and commissioning Wiley (DD-597) was laid down on 10 August 1943 at Bremerton, Wash., by the Puget Sound Navy Yard; launched on 25 September 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Herbert V. Wiley, wife of Vice Admiral Herbert V. Wiley, USN (Ret.); and commissioned there on 22 February 1945. History The destroyer conducted shakedown out of San Diego, Calif., through the end of April 1945; underwent post-shakedown availability at Puget Sound; and then sailed for the Hawaiian Islands, departing Port Angeles on 19 May and arriving at Pearl Harbor on the 26th. She trained in the vicinity of Oahu for three weeks before getting underway on 13 June to escort the escort carrier to the Philippines. Arriving at Leyte on 13 July and in Subic Bay on the 15th, Wiley operated out of the Philippines on training exercises through the first week of August. The ship departed Subic Bay on 9 August and escorted a small group of tankers to the Ryukyus. Within a week, Japan capitulated, ending the war in the Pacific. Wiley subsequently joined the North China force in operations off the coast of Asia, while Chinese communist and Nationalist forces fought for supremacy in the strategic northern provinces once occupied by the Japanese. Over the next three months, this peacekeeping duty took the destroyer to Dairen, Port Arthur, Chefoo, Tsingtao, and Chinwangtao. The ship destroyed floating Japanese mines with gunfire and screened the cruisers of Cruiser Division 6. On 8 September, Wiley covered the landings of a peacekeeping force of American troops at Inchon (then called Jinsen), Korea. Detached from this duty with the cruisers, Wiley joined a fast carrier task