units; and Twining filled her oil tanks. During a typhoon that battered the task force the next day, the weight of her full load of fuel gave Twining the added stability she needed to weather 65-foot seas and 50-degree rolls. Ordered to stand by the disabled as the light carrier burned, dead in the water, Twining maintained a position near the stricken vessel throughout the storm. Twining came through the tempest with no major damage but lost one man overboard. As dawn broke in moderating weather on 19 December, the destroyer accompanied the task force as it steamed on for a strike on Luzon; but, when bad weather aborted the strike, she returned to the scene of the typhoon to search for survivors from the three destroyers which had sunk during the storm, before returning to Ulithi on Christmas Eve to repair storm damage. 1945 Admiral William Halsey's 3rd Fleet departed on 30 December and set course for strikes on Formosa, the Ryukyus, and the China coast to prevent Japanese interference with the coming landings on Luzon at Lingayen Gulf. Twining screened the carriers as they launched strikes against the enemy in the Philippines, on Formosa, and in French Indochina.Twining returned to Ulithi on 26 January for dry-docking, provisioning, and training exercises. She got underway again on 10 February with Rear Admiral Davison's Carrier Task Group bound for waters near the Japanese home islands. After naval aircraft raided military targets in the Tokyo area on the 16th and 17th, the task group headed south toward the Volcano Islands.Twining was on picket station off Iwo Jima on 19 February, D-Day, as the carrier force launched strikes and fighter cover for the landings on Iwo Jima. Four days later, the destroyer again headed north protecting carriers steaming toward the Japanese homeland, but bad weather foiled the carriers. On 1 March, the task group launched strikes on the Ryukyus before steaming to the Carolines. In mid-March, Task Force 58 departed Ulithi to conduct strikes on the airfields near Kyūshū on the 18th. The next day, as the group was en route to Kobe, carrier suffered extensive damage when hit by two bombs. Twining helped to protect the damaged vessel as she withdrew. On the 20th, a Japanese plane attempted to finish off the battered carrier only to be chased off by a hail of fire from the escorting ships. On the 22d, having