In his official report on D-Day and the loss of his ship, the USS Corry (DD-463), Lieutenant Commander George D. Hoffman wrote: "It was believed for a long time that the cause of the fatal damage of the ship was a salvo of heavy-caliber projectiles." He continued, "However . . . it is now fully believed that the major damage was due to a mine." But, given the catastrophic suddenness of the destruction, it is not surprising that others differed with their captain's conclusion.
Hoffman's Corry, like her predecessor, Destroyer No. 334, had been named for Lieutenant Commander William Merrill Corry, who suffered fatal burns after being thrown from a crashed JN-4 Jenny on 3 October 1920 and then plunging into the flames to rescue the pilot. For his selfless heroism he earned the Medal of Honor posthumously. The first ship named for him, one of the World War I emergency program flush-deckers, served less than a decade.
As the U.S. Navy expanded to meet the challenges posed by the forces of fascism, the name was again assigned, this time to one of the Gleaves-class destroyers under construction at the Charleston (South Carolina) Navy Yard. Laid down on 4 September 1940, the second Corry was launched on 28 July 1941, christened by Miss Jean Constance Corry, niece of the namesake. Commissioned at her building yard on 18 December 1941, with Lieutenant Commander Eugene C. "Blackie" Burchett in command, the Corry ran her first sea trials on 9 March. Charleston Navy Yard's workers finished the ship two days ahead of the projected 27 March 1942 completion date, allowing her to report to the Atlantic Fleet on 2 April.
Through the remainder of 1942 and 1943 the Corry was employed in convoy escort work primarily between Norfolk and Panama, and she was a frequent consort to the USS Ranger (CV-4). In July and November 1942 she covered the flattop during trips to Africa, the last during Operation Torch, and in August 1943 was with her again when the carrier's air group provided cover for the Halifax, Nova Scotia, arrival of the Queen Mary with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill embarked. One final mission with the Ranger was during Operation Leader, the raid on Bodo, Norway, in October 1943.
The Corry went on the offensive when she sailed on 16 February 1944 for hunter-killer work in the Atlantic. One month later, on 16 March, she joined a plane from Composite Squadron 6 off the escort carrier USS Block Island (CVE-21) in hunting the U-801. The destroyer escort USS Bronstein (DE-189) joined the search the next day and soon located the enemy. She attacked first, followed by the Corry, whose depth charges forced the Germans to the surface. Lieutenant Commander Hoffman, in the tradition of his godfather, Admiral George Dewey, ordered "right full rudder [and] rang up for 30 knots." The Corry came about and commenced firing with main and secondary batteries, scoring eight to ten direct hits that proved the coup de grace for the U-boat, then fished the 47 surviving submariners from the ocean, and soon transferred them to the Block Island.
Two days later, when planes from the CVE sent the U-1059 to the bottom, the Corry rescued the only survivor of the Grumman TBF Avenger that had sunk the U-boat but been shot down in the process, and eight German survivors, including the boat's commanding officer. During the 11 days they were embarked, "We got them pretty well Americanized," the destroyer's captain later explained, "probably . . . through [the] good treatment that they were just a little surprised to receive."
After an overhaul in Boston and training, the destroyer cleared Norfolk on 20 April 1944 for Great Britain, and the preparations for the Normandy invasion.
The Corry escorted convoy U-2B across the English Channel and reached the transport area on schedule on 6 June 1944. She then steamed down the boat lane toward Utah's Red and Green beaches in echelon with the USS Hobson (DD-464) and Fitch (DD-462) to participate in the preassault bombardment. Five minutes before the Corry was to steer a course away from the boat lane to reach her fire-support station, however, the 210-mm guns of the German St. Marcouf battery opened up on her and the Fitch.
Steaming at three knots, the Corry responded with her 5-inch guns in concert with the Fitch's, targeting muzzle flashes that marked the battery's location. The Corry slowed to a stop at H-50 (0540), on reaching fire support station No. 3 and anchored. Soon thereafter, she began pounding her assigned targets, expending 110 rounds of what appeared to Commander Leo Nilon, the commander of Destroyer Division 20, who was in the Hobson, to be "well controlled fire."
The Germans soon began to find the range of the courageous Corry as shell splashes erupted near her at 0629. Machinist's Mate Second Class Ernest P. "Sandy" McKay, in the destroyer's forward machinery space, "could hear the sound of something hitting the sides of the ship . . . as if someone was throwing stones." Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Thomas L. Groot, gun captain of Mount 53, saw the plumes of water from the exploding shells coming closer. Groot shouted down to his crew that they had been straddled: "Stand by for a hit!" Ensign Robert Beeman on the bridge had the uncomfortable feeling that "clearly we were on the bull's eye." It was seemingly only a matter of time before the methodical German gunners would hit their target.
"About three minutes after H hour [0633]," Lieutenant Commander Hoffman told Commander Percy Wright on 11 July 1944, "we hit a mine, probably caused by high speed maneuvers to dodge the shells in going full speed ahead, backing full, giving hard right rudder, hard left rudder. In order to throw off the salvoes we probably stirred up an acoustic mine." The force of the explosion opened up three forward machinery spaces, and the ship lost power immediately.
Ensign Beeman suddenly found himself in midair "flying some ten or 15 feet down the deck," with his headphones and helmet blown off his head and aft. He believes they were victims of gunfire. "All the damage I observed after that first hit suggested an explosion above the keel."
Chief Petty Officer Frank McKernon, in the Corry's pilot house at the time, was of the same mind. "I suddenly heard a ripping, tearing sound coming from overhead. Immediately, a jarring explosion ruptured the Corry amidships. . . . My guess: Saint-Marcouf's guns had found us."
Whatever the cause, her back broken, the Corry settled, folding up like a jackknife. The captain gave the order to abandon ship, and her survivors then began the struggle to survive in the 54-degree water for some two hours under constant shelling until rescued by the Fitch, Hobson, Butler (DD-636), and PT-199. The captain's final report listed the casualties as 6 dead, 16 missing, and 33 injured.
Taken to Falmouth, England, in the attack transport Barnett (APA-5) later that day, the able-bodied survivors were transferred to the U.S. Naval Advanced Base there, and the wounded to the U.S. Naval Dispensary. Entraining for Plymouth late on the morning of 8 June, the Corry's men went first to Exeter, then to Rosneath, Scotland.
While her officers and men moved on to other assignments, the Navy did not forget the plucky destroyer. To specifically honor the Corry, the Navy assigned the name to another destroyer, DD-817, nine months later. Commissioned in 1946, the third destroyer with the name served until 1981, before ultimately being turned over to the Greek Navy.