USS Southerland (DD-743), a , was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for William Henry Hudson Southerland, an admiral. Southerland was laid down on 27 May 1944 by the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine and launched on 5 October 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Edmund Richardson, daughter of Rear Admiral Southerland. The destroyer was commissioned on 22 December 1944. Service history World War II, 1945 Southerland completed shakedown in the Bermuda area in February 1945 and conducted further exercises into April. On 24 April she rendezvoused with TU 23.16.1 off the New Jersey coast and headed for the Pacific. Arriving at Pearl Harbor on 15 May, she sailed for Ulithi on 28 May. In June, she moved on to Leyte; whence, on 1 July, she sailed with TF 38, the Fast Carrier Task Force, for the fleet's final raids on the Japanese home islands. From 10 July until the end of the war, she screened the carriers as their planes flew against military and industrial targets on the Tokyo Plain, in other parts of Honshū, on Hokkaidō, and in the Inland Sea. Twice detached for night shore bombardment missions with TU 34.8.1, she fired on the Hamamatsu area, southern Honshū, on the night of 29 and 30 July, and on Kamaishi, northern Honshū, on 9 and 10 August. Strikes on the Tokyo Plain scheduled for 15 August were cancelled as hostilities ceased, but the ships continued to cruise off the Japanese coast. On 27 August Southerland anchored in Sagami Wan; and, on 28 August, she moved up to Tokyo, the very first US ship to enter the harbor. On 30 August she covered the landing of occupation troops at Huttu Saki and Yokosuka. A week later, she completed a mail run to the Ryūkyūs; then joined TG 35.1 for further occupation duty. She was the first man of war to enter Tokyo Bay at the time of the signing of the surrender documents Western Pacific, 1946–1949 In January 1946, Southerland sailed for the United States. Immobilized for a time at San Diego, she departed the California coast for the Central Pacific in November; and, in February 1947, she continued on to the western Pacific. She arrived at Shanghai on 8 February and, through the spring, operated along the China coast, primarily out of Tsingtao. In June, she was in Japanese waters; and, on 21 June, she