USS Stafford (DE-411) was a in the United States Navy. She was named after Richard Y. Stafford (1916–1942), a United States Marine Corps Captain who died during the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Staffords keel was laid down on 29 November 1943 at Houston, Texas, by Brown Shipbuilding. The ship was launched on 11 January 1944, sponsored by Miss Flora Stafford; and commissioned on 19 April 1944.
History
Upon completion of fitting out in the Galveston-Houston area, Stafford sailed in company with on 7 May for Bermuda for shakedown training. Her shakedown cruise was interrupted from 17 to 19 May, when she rendezvoused with convoy GUS-38 and escorted into Bermuda. She completed training and post-shakedown availability early in June and, on 9 June, joined off Bermuda to escort that Italian submarine north. Three days later, at the entrance to Casco Bay, Maine, relieved Stafford of her charge, and the destroyer escort stood into Boston Harbor and moored at Charlestown, Massachusetts. She underwent post-shakedown overhaul at the Boston Navy Yard from 13 to 22 June. The next day, she headed south and moored at Norfolk, Virginia, two days later.
On the afternoon of 27 June, Stafford joined La Prade and off the Virginia Capes to form Task Unit (TU) 29.6.6 which shaped a course for the Panama Canal. The three ships transited the canal on 3 July, and Stafford moored at Balboa. The following day, Independence Day 1944, she reported to the Pacific Fleet for duty and sailed for San Diego. Following repairs at the Destroyer Repair Base there, she got underway with La Prade for Hawaii and reached Pearl Harbor on 25 July. For almost a month, she engaged in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training in the Hawaiian Islands.
On 18 August, Stafford and steamed out of Pearl Harbor escorting TU 16.8.1 to the Marshall Islands. The ships arrived at Kwajalein on 25 August, and Stafford escorted to Majuro the following day. On 29 August, she joined in the screen of . The three warships made Pearl Harbor on 3 September, and the destroyer escort operated out of that base for just under two months. During that time, she joined in several anti-submarine warfare exercises. On 31 October, she departed Pearl Harbor with Task Group (TG) 12.3 to find and destroy an enemy submarine known to be prowling the sea lanes between Hawaii and the West Coast. Over the following two weeks, the task group made several contacts, attacked them with depth charges, but failed to locate and sink the elusive enemy. On 14 November, the task group received word that another unit had sunk its quarry; and it was ordered back to Pearl, where it arrived on 19 November.
Five days later, Stafford departed Pearl as an element of TG 12.4, bound for the central and western Pacific. The task group reached Eniwetok on 2 December, reported for duty to the Commander, Third Fleet, and was redesignated TG 30.6. The next day, the ships continued west, stopping over at Ulithi on the night of 7 and 8 December and at Saipan on 10 and 11 December. By 17 December, she reached Kossol Passage in the Palaus. The task group made an anti-submarine sweep in radius around Peleliu before heading for Ulithi, where it arrived on 22 December. On 28 December, the group, redesignated TU 77.4.13, exited the lagoon and returned to the Palaus the following day.
On New Year's Day 1945, Stafford sailed with the task unit from Kossol Roads screening units of Task Force 77 steaming toward Luzon. From Leyte, the task force sailed south through the Surigao Strait, then west along the northern coast of Mindanao, before turning north to skirt the coasts of Negros, Panay, Mindoro, and Luzon. Although air alerts were called from the second day out and reported an unidentified plane's splashing close aboard, the kamikazes did not succeed in crashing a ship until late on 4 January, when one hit . The escort aircraft carrier had to be finished off by American torpedoes. By 5 January, the Japanese had determined that TF 77 was headed for Lingayen; and they intensified their air attacks accordingly. Late that afternoon, the task force, located just northwest of Manila Bay, came under moderately heavy kamikaze attacks.