Ranger (CV-4)—voyaged to Callao, Peru, for a visit that coincided with the Inter-American Technical Aviation Conference at Lima. While Ranger proceeded independently homeward upon conclusion of her visit, the destroyers paused at Balboa, Panama Canal Zone, before returning to San Diego. The coming of war in Europe on 1 September 1939 altered Worden's pattern of operations out of San Diego. Five days after hostilities began in Poland, the Navy commenced its Neutrality Patrol duties on 6 September. On 22 September, the Chief of Naval Operations directed the Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet to transfer, temporarily, to the Hawaiian area two heavy cruiser divisions, a destroyer flotilla flagship (a light cruiser), two destroyer squadrons, one destroyer tender, an aircraft carrier, and base force units necessary for servicing those ships; that dispatch marked the establishment of the Hawaiian Detachment—the forerunner of the ultimate basing of the Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Worden was attached to this new force, commanded by Vice Admiral Adolphus Andrews, whose flag flew in the heavy cruiser Indianapolis (CA-35). On 5 October 1939, she sailed for Pearl Harbor. Worden worked primarily in the Hawaiian Islands over the next two years, interspersing her time at Pearl Harbor and its environs with regular periods of upkeep on the west coast. Upon the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI in the Spring of 1940, the entire Fleet was based in Hawaiian waters. Pearl Harbor On the morning of 7 December 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Worden lay in a nest alongside destroyer tender Dobbin (AD-3), receiving upkeep. She suffered no damage in the Japanese attack, but one of her gunners, Quartermaster 3d Class Raymond H. Brubaker, shot down a bomber with a .50-caliber Browning machine gun. Within two hours of the commencement of the attack, Worden had gotten underway and was proceeding to the open sea. Although, in the operational plans for the attack, Japanese submarines were supposed to attack American ships as they emerged from Pearl Harbor, their attempts to carry out the mission failed. The danger of enemy submarines, however, did exist; and purported submarine sightings proliferated. Worden picked up a submarine contact at 1240— well over three hours after the attack by the enemy aircraft had been completed—and dropped seven depth charges. That afternoon, the destroyer joined a task force built around the light cruiser Detroit (CL-8), the flagship of Rear Admiral Milo Draemel. Searching