USS Sicard

[1] Arriving at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on 27 April 1922 from spring maneuvers in the West Indies, Sicard underwent repairs and fitted out for duty in the United States Asiatic Fleet.

[1] On 30 and 31 August 1923, when the violent Great Kantō earthquake destroyed a large part of the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, Japan, the commander-in-chief of the Asiatic Fleet, Admiral Edwin Anderson, Jr., dispatched all available vessels to that area with emergency supplies to render assistance.

The prompt action of Sicard and other units of the Asiatic Fleet helped save thousands of lives and earned the thanks of the Japanese government.

The destroyer cruised from Hong Kong to Rangoon, Burma, and Calcutta, India, guarding the flight and maintaining radio communications.

She engaged in fleet concentration problems and battle and torpedo practice, towed targets for submarines and aviation squadrons, and performed plane guard duty and made United States Naval Reserve training cruises.

[1] On 12 May 1935, while engaging in Fleet Problem XVI off Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii, Sicard was rammed accidentally by the destroyer USS Lea (DD-118) and badly damaged.

[1] In May 1937, Sicard entered the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard for conversion to a light minelayer, and on 20 June 1937 she was reclassified DM-21 in accordance with her new role.

Except for a trip to the U.S. West Coast for repairs and training from 20 September to 20 December 1937, Sicard operated in the Hawaiian area through 1941, engaging in division tactics and training exercises, fleet problems, and maneuvers, joint United States Army and U.S. Navy exercises, battle, torpedo and mining practice, and reconnaissance missions around Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and outlying islands.

[1] On completion of her overhaul on 28 January 1942, Sicard left Pearl Harbor for an antisubmarine patrol station southwest of Oahu, where she escorted ships within her area and searched for Imperial Japanese Navy submarines.

[1] On 19 June 1942, Sicard departed Pearl Harbor with other light minelayers, picked up naval mines at Seattle, Washington, and, in July 1942, laid a defensive minefield off Kodiak, Alaska.

She was more fortunate during Operation Cottage, the landings on Kiska in the Aleutians, and successfully guided the waves of assault boats to the beach there between 15 and 18 August 1943.

Just as the fast minelayer group completed its mission and began to retire early on the morning of 2 November 1943, it was illuminated by parachute flares from Japanese aircraft.

Soon a U.S. cruiser force steamed by at high speed in the opposite direction and opened fire on Japanese ships invisible to the minelayers.

Sicardcompleted her training duties at Midway on 2 September 1945,[1] the day Japan surrendered, bringing World War II to an end.

Sicard after her collision with USS Macdonough (DD-351) , 19 May 1943.
Sicard in 1944.