USS Sterett (DD-407) was a in the United States Navy. She was the second Navy ship named for Andrew Sterett. The Sterett was laid down on 2 December 1936 at the Charleston Navy Yard; launched on 27 October 1938; sponsored by Mrs. Camilla Ridgely Simpson; and commissioned on 15 August 1939. Pre-war years The Sterett departed from Charleston, South Carolina on 28 October 1939 in company with two other newly commissioned destroyers, and , for shakedown in the Gulf of Mexico. She visited Veracruz, Cristóbal, Mobile, and Guantanamo Bay before returning to Charleston on 20 December. She underwent post-shakedown overhaul and trials at Charleston until departing on 4 May 1940. Assigned to Destroyer Division 15, Sterett rendezvoused with at Guantanamo Bay, and the two destroyers steamed for San Diego via the Panama Canal. They arrived in San Diego on 23 May; and, for a month, Sterett divided her time between training and plane-guarding . On 24 June, she sailed for Hawaii with Enterprise and five other destroyers, and arrived at Pearl Harbor on 2 July. She operated out of Pearl Harbor for the next 10 months, participating in a number of exercises and patrols. When exited Pearl Harbor on 14 May 1941, the Sterett was in her screen. The warships transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Norfolk on 28 June. Sterett next screened the during the escort carrier's Bermuda shakedown cruise. Sterett concluded 1941 engaged in neutrality patrols with the . World War II After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Sterett steamed from Bermuda with the Wasp and an assortment of cruisers and destroyers to counter possible action by Vichy French ships anchored at Martinique. 1942 The Sterett spent the early months of the war patrolling off the eastern seaboard. In mid-January, she steamed to the Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland, to meet Task Force 15 (TF 15) and escort a convoy to Iceland. The convoy was transferred to two British destroyers on 23 January 1942, and she entered Hvalfjörður, Iceland, on the 26th. The Sterett returned to the United States at New York City on 9 February, and she departed on the 15th to meet the passenger liner off the Boston breakwater and escort her into the harbor. After two trips between Boston and Casco Bay, Maine, the Sterett joined the USS Wasp as part of her escort to duty with the British Home Fleet. The task