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.
The Sterett departed from Charleston, South Carolina on 28 October 1939 in company with two other newly commissioned destroyers, Mustin and Hughes, for shakedown in the Gulf of Mexico.
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.
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 Sterett returned to the United States at New York City on 9 February, and she departed on the 15th to meet the passenger liner RMS Queen Mary 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.
While the Wasp made her first aerial reinforcement of the embattled Malta, the Sterett operated with the British Fleet out of Scapa Flow.
She was assigned to Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner's South Pacific Amphibious Expeditionary Force and practiced invasion techniques in the Fiji Islands until 1 August 1942.
Meanwhile, the Sterett and the Wasp carrier group zigzagged into a rain squall, successfully dodging an 18-plane raid launched from Rabaul on New Britain Island.
Next, the Sterett steamed east of San Cristobal to screen the USS Long Island while she launched 31 Marine planes for the defense of Guadalcanal.
Following duty escorting the Bellatrix and the Betelgeuse to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, and guarding the latter all the way to Nouméa, New Caledonia, she returned to Guadalcanal accompanying two transports, the McCawley and the Zeilin, loaded with troops and equipment.
The Sterett covered the establishment of the beachhead and later she joined the San Francisco and the Helena in a bombardment of Japanese positions near Koli Point.
[1] At this point, the battle degenerated into a chaotic maelstrom of individual duels at very short range, with accurate “friend-or-foe” identification extremely difficult due to darkness, smoke, and a lack of radar.
Her after deck house and number three gun, an unshielded open mount back aft, were engulfed by flames that brightly illuminated the flag on the small ship's mainmast truck.
Her after handling rooms were set afire, causing powder in the ready service storage to ignite ... Twenty-eight men were dead, another thirteen seriously wounded.
Those who stayed aboard and saved the ship braved burning compartments to turn flood valves and remove wounded from impossible places.
They defied smoke to soak powder, grid bulkheads, patch holes, fix pumps, run hoses, and keep electricity flowing.
[9]At 02:30, with the Japanese retiring toward Savo Island, Sterett, her after guns and starboard torpedo tubes out of commission, began to withdraw.
She had difficulty overtaking the rest of her force because of her damaged steering gear and the necessity to reduce speed periodically to control the blaze on her after deck.
Before heading for Espiritu Santo on the 13th, she delivered her parting shot by depth-charging a sound contact, possibly the submarine which, about an hour later, would sink the Juneau.
She then steamed into San Francisco Bay on 11 December and entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, where she remained for two months.
Sterett steamed from San Francisco on 10 February 1943, joined the Nassau at Pearl Harbor, and together they reached Espiritu Santo on 3 March.
On 6 August 1943, Sterett was steaming in "Ironbottom Sound" in the second division of the six-destroyer task group under Commander Frederick Moosbrugger.
At Vella Gulf, Sterett and her comrades accounted for three destroyers, over 1,500 sailors and soldiers, and a large portion of the 50 tons of supplies.
In the Solomons on the last three days of 1943, the Sterett escorted the Alabama to Pearl Harbor and on to the Ellice Islands, arriving at Funafuti on 21 January 1944.
Sterett sortied from Oahu with Task Unit 16.8.5 (TU 16.8.5) on 19 November and, 12 days later, entered Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands.
During the next three months, Sterett plied the waters of the South and Central Pacific, primarily engaged in patrol and convoy duty in the Solomons.
Following emergency repairs at Kerama Retto, she screened TU 53.7.1 to Ulithi; and from there, she and the USS Rail (DE-304) steamed to Pearl Harbor.