USS Trathen (DD-530) was a World War II-era in the service of the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946 and 1951 to 1965. History World War II Trathen was named after Lieutenant Commander James Trathen, commander of USS Midnight (1861) during the American Civil War. She was laid down on 17 March 1942 at San Francisco, California, by the Bethlehem Steel Co.; launched on 22 October 1942; sponsored by Mrs. Cassin Young, wife of Captain Cassin Young who was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor as commanding officer of Vestal (AR-4) during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; and commissioned on 28 May 1943, Commander Alvoord J. Greenacre in command. 1943 Following training operations in the Hawaiian area, Trathen joined Rear Admiral Willis A. Lee's Task Force (TF) 11 to take part in the reoccupation of Baker Island. The target isle, a tiny elliptical speck of land, lay nearer to the Japanese-held northern Gilbert Islands than Funafuti in the Ellice group and presented a valuable staging area for projected aerial search and photo reconnaissance missions against the Japanese mandates. Lee, in Hercules (AK-41), led TF 11's sortie from Pearl Harbor on 25 August 1943, and his ships arrived off Baker on 1 September. While the transports and Ashland (LSD-1) disembarked their troops and disgorged their cargoes shoreward, Trathen stood by and provided fighter-direction services to the Grumman F6F Hellcats from Belleau Wood (CVL-24) and Princeton (CVL-23). During the action, the destroyer directed the F6F's to a radar contact 32 miles away. They soon came upon the snooping Kawanishi H8K (Allied identifier: "Emily") flying boat and dispatched her so fast that no radio report from the Japanese got out over the airwaves. Two days later, Trathen again vectored the Hellcats to another "Emily" which they also splashed into the sea. With Baker secure and the priceless airfield constructed and ready for use by 11 September, Trathen headed for Hawaii. On 29 September, the ship commenced screening operations for Task Group (TG) 14.5, as it sortied from Pearl Harbor, bound for Wake Island. Under the command of Rear Admiral Alfred E. Montgomery, this fast carrier task force—the largest yet assembled—consisted of Essex (CV-9), Yorktown (CV-10), Lexington (CV-16), Cowpens (CVL-25), Independence (CVL-22), and Belleau Wood. On 5 and 6 October, Montgomery's planes made six strikes, flying 738 combat sorties while battleships and cruisers provided their heavy gunfire for further harassment