torpedo bombers, flying from bases in Indochina, overwhelmed Prince of Wales and Repulse off Kuantan, Malaya, that afternoon and sank them both. Underway at 1509, Alden and her sister ships soon cleared Singapore, and stood toward the scene of the action in response to Admiral Phillips' desperate signal, sent early in the battle, for destroyer assistance. Accompanying British and Australian destroyers had already rescued the survivors from the two capital ships, however, and were retiring toward Singapore. Alden and her division mates subsequently entered the waters in which the battle had taken place earlier that day, looking for survivors, but only sighted pieces of wreckage, eventually winding up the search effort during the mid-watch. En route back to Singapore, Alden noted a "probable submarine attack," at 0630 on 11 December, and left the formation to investigate the source of "torpedo wakes" but found nothing. Alden and her sister ships reached port later that morning; Alden mooring alongside RFA Francol at 1041 to replenish her fuel bunkers. While in port, she lowered her flag to half-mast in tribute to the men lost in Prince of Wales and Repulse. Alden remained at Singapore until the morning of the 14th when, after disembarking the Royal Navy liaison party, she got underway with the rest of the division for Surabaya, Java. She reached that Dutch port late on the afternoon of 15 December. Underway on the 20th for Australian waters, Alden sailed for Port Darwin in the screen of , breaking up the routine of the voyage by sending boarding parties to investigate and establish the friendly character of various small craft and ships sighted en route. She fell in with another formation of American ships moving to Australian waters, , , and , two days before Christmas, and fueled at sea from Pecos the same day. The destroyer ultimately saw her charges safely to Darwin, dropping anchor in that north Australian port at 13:05 on 28 December. 1942 Alden, soon reassigned to DesDiv 58, spent the next several weeks escorting troop and supply convoys in support of efforts to defend the Malay Barrier. During the course of one such evolution, she was in the Beagle Gulf west of Darwin, Australia, on the morning of 20 January 1942 escorting the oiler with Edsall when the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine sighted Trinity heading toward Port Darwin. Misidentifying Trinity as a transport, I-123 fired four Type