Kenneth Loveland and her sister ships of Desdiv 20 joined veteran aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) at Norfolk, Virginia, and sailed on 1 July 1942 to escort her to Africa.

[4][5] The Allies organized three amphibious task forces to seize the key ports and airports of Vichy French-controlled Morocco and Algeria simultaneously, targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers.

[6] Hobson and the other four destroyers' main job was to screen and protect Ranger while the carrier's mobile air power supported the army's assault at Casablanca.

As Ranger's planes were attacking Jean Bart on D-Day Plus 2 (10 November), the French submarine Le Tonnant fired four torpedoes at the carrier which passed harmlessly astern.

Arriving 19 August, she operated under Royal Navy orders in northern waters, helping to provide cover for vital supply convoys to Russia.

Hobson and DesDiv 20 along with Ranger and the heavy cruisers USS Augusta and USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) formed a task force under the command of Rear Admiral Olaf M. Hustvedt that executed Operation Leader, a daring raid of combined British and American naval forces on 2–4 October 1943, when Ranger's air wing of dive bombers, torpedo bombers and fighters staged a devastating attack on German shipping at Bodø, Norway.

After patrolling for over two weeks, the destroyers spotted an oil slick, made sonar contact, and commenced depth charge attacks on the afternoon of 13 March 1944.

The German submarine U-575 was severely damaged and was forced to surface, after which gunfire from Hobson, USS Haverfield (DE-393), a torpedo bomber from Composite Squadron Ninety-Five (VC 95) based on Bogue, the Canadian frigate HMCS Prince Rupert and an RAF Flying Fortress (No.

All vessels entering into Utah had to remain in their assigned asymmetrical and exact mine-swept channels that had been drawn up and cleared to provide the maximum safety from the mine peril and to permit access to all the carefully designated positions of the bombardment ships.

At 0700, the smoke cover was clearing from Corry and the men on Hobson could see she was "in definite trouble with her back broken between the stacks" as targets 13A and 86 fired on the stricken destroyer.

Battle Group 1 under Admiral Morton Deyo's command, was assigned to bombard Cherbourg, the inner harbor forts, and the area west towards the Atlantic.

[19][20] Rear Admiral Carleton F. Bryant's smaller Battle Group 2 was assigned "Target 2", the Battery Hamburg, which was located near Fermanville, inland from Cape Levi, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Cherbourg.

Under the direction of army spotters, these ships were able to engage point targets up to 2,000 yards (1,800 m) inland, which proved invaluable in providing close support to the assaulting Allied infantry.

After an inspection of the port defenses, an army liaison officer reported that the guns that had been targeted could not be reactivated, and those that could have been turned landward were still pointed out to sea when the city had fallen.

[25] Following the surrender of Cherbourg, Hobson and most of Task Force 129 that had not sustained battle damage, were ordered to Belfast, Northern Ireland to join the attack transports that had assembled there following service in the Normandy Invasion and to await the move to the Mediterranean.

[2][26] As the Allied offensive in Europe gained momentum, Hobson steamed as a convoy escort between Algeria, Italy, and France protecting vital supplies and troops.

In the early morning darkness of 2 October 1944, Hobson was standing out from Marseilles, France, during a violent gale, when her spotters observed distress calls from well inside an unswept area of the German- mined harbor.

It was soon established that a liberty ship, the S.S. Johns Hopkins, moving to an anchorage after returning from Oran, Algeria, with 600 troops embarked, had struck a mine while navigating in the gale.

Hobson remained on scene over the next twenty-four hours, and until S.S. Johns Hopkins was successfully returned to port by a Navy fleet tugboat with no loss of life or injury to her personnel or troops.

[27] In October 1944, with the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters secured, all eight surviving destroyers of DesRon 10 returned to various east coast navy yards where over a period of approximately six weeks, they had their No.

In January 1945, the eight newly converted destroyer-minesweepers made their way from their conversion shipyards to the Pacific as the core of the 12-ship Mine Squadron (MinRon) 20, with flag on the Ellyson.

Given the nature of their task, the minesweepers had to be the first surface vessels at the target area and unlike the carriers, they headed directly to Okinawa, making the voyage in four days.

A single 1,000-pound bomb, or two 500-pounders, penetrated the main and superstructure decks and exploded with a violent eruption, buckling the keel and splitting the vessel in two at the forward fire room.

That same morning, about 40 minutes before Pringle was sunk, the destroyer USS Laffey (DD-724) and several other ships on radar picket duty, had also been hit by kamikazes about fifty miles away.

The aft part of the ship sank first but 40 of the survivors came from that section as men were literally shot out of a scuttle hatch they had managed to open, propelled by the force of water and expelling air.

Rodman and Wasp pulled aboard 61 oil-coated survivors, but the destroyer and 176 of her crew including Tierney, who dove from the bridge into the sea moments before the carrier plowed into Hobson, were lost in less than five minutes.

[2][35] The sinking of Hobson was the worst non-combat accident for the U.S. Navy since the disappearance of the collier USS Cyclops (AC-4) with 306 crew and passengers en route from Barbados to Baltimore, Maryland, in March 1918, during World War I.

The court of inquiry also stated in its findings that, in the future, proposed schedules for aircraft launching and recovery should be provided to the vessels performing plane guard duties.

For his gallantry in action at the Normandy D-Day amphibious assault on Utah Beach and later at the bombardment of German defenses at Cherbourg, Loveland was awarded the Silver Star.

He was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism and meritorious performance of duty in the face of great danger during the Hobson's attempted rescue and successful towing operation of the mined SS Johns Hopkins off Marseilles, France, on 2 October 1944.