Adm. Taussig is remembered for claiming Wake Island for the United States on 17 January 1899 while commanding the gunboat Bennington and for accepting the physical relinquishment of Guam from Spain, ending 300 years of Spanish colonial rule.

After six days of training in Hawaiian waters, the warship cleared Pearl Harbor on 28 September in company with Destroyer Squadron 61 (DesRon 61) bound, via Eniwetok, for Ulithi.

Early in November, she joined the screen of TF 38 itself while its planes continued to support the Leyte operation with covering strikes up and down the Philippine chain.

Taussig screened the flattops while their planes attacked Japanese bases along the Chinese and Indochinese coasts and on the islands of Formosa and Okinawa as well as providing support for the Allied conquest of Luzon.

Though she apparently failed to sink the boat, Taussig succeeded in her primary mission, protecting the carriers.Task Force 58 cleared the Volcano Islands on 22 February to resume the air offensive against the heart of the Japanese Empire.

Bad weather precluded the carrying out of operations against Tokyo and Nagoya which had been planned for the 25th and 26th, respectively, and Taussig steamed southwest to strike Okinawa on 1 March.

During the raids of 18 and 19 March, American planes also attacked Japanese warships at Kure and succeeded in damaging the carriers Ryūhō and Amagi as well as the battleship Yamato.

Taussig helped shoot down two aircraft on the 18th and the next day screened TF 58 as it retired from the vicinity of Kyūshū after a devastating kamikaze attack.

She defended her big sisters during the sporadic air attacks of the 20th and, after the task force reorganization of the 22d, she moved off to screen TG 58.1 during the week-long aerial assault inflicted upon Okinawa at the end of March.

TF 58 provided air support through the first three months of the campaign, and Taussig moved about off Okinawa screening the carrier from Japanese submarines and planes.

Through the first week in June, she continued to protect those carriers off Okinawa while they sent their planes against the beleaguered island's stubborn defenders and against air bases on Kyūshū.

Less than 48 hours later, Taussig — assigned to DesDiv 92, 7th Fleet — resumed familiar duty in the Sea of Japan screening TF 77 carriers while their planes joined South Korean ground forces in an attempt to stem the communist tide.

That duty continued until the second week in July when Taussig made visits to Buckner Bay, Okinawa, and to Keelung, Taiwan, before returning to the war zone on the 11th.

Between 3 and 23 November, Taussig participated in hunter-killer operations with units of the ROK Navy before heading south for a month with the Taiwan Strait Patrol.

She spent Christmas in Sasebo and then rejoined TF 95 on 26 December for more than a month of operations, primarily shore bombardment and night illumination fire along Korea's western coast.

Taussig returned to San Diego on 11 May and, after a month of leave and upkeep, began training operations which continued until 1 October when she entered the Mare Island Naval Shipyard for repairs.

Between the seventh and eight deployments, she entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard on 22 January 1962 to begin a nine-month Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) overhaul, which she completed on 11 October.

For the time being, however, Taussig's one short patrol at "Yankee Station" in March constituted her only Vietnam service during her ninth deployment since the Korean War.

Following further exercises and shore bombardment qualifications, the destroyer got underway from San Diego on 20 April to return to the Far East to provide naval support for the burgeoning American presence in the Republic of Vietnam.

From then until early October, Taussig alternated naval gunfire support with plane guard duty for Constellation on the southern SAR station off Vietnam.

After 10 days in Subic Bay as naval gunfire support ready ship, the warship headed south on 9 October to participate in Operation "Swordhilt."

She refueled at Manus on 15 October and, on the 16th, joined ships of the Australian, New Zealand, and British navies for the 11-day exercise in which antisubmarine warfare and air defense were emphasized.

On 4 November, Commander, 7th Fleet, cut short her stay at Melbourne by ordering Taussig to assist Tiru which had run aground on Frederick Reef some 300 miles northeast of Australia.

In June and July, she embarked NROTC midshipmen for their summer cruise, conducted gunnery drills at San Clemente Island, and resumed antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training with Lofberg, Chevalier, Frank Knox, and Raton.

On 23 January, units of the North Korean Navy seized the electronic reconnaissance ship Pueblo, and ASW Group 1 was diverted to the Sea of Japan.

From 29 June to 15 July, she provided gunfire support for the Allied ground forces fighting North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units in the U.S. IV Corps area of South Vietnam.

After a tender availability alongside Ajax at Sasebo, Taussig entered the Sea of Japan on 4 August to "ride shotgun" for Benjamin Stoddert and Halsey.

As the only gunfire support for Operation "Defiant Stand", Taussig and her crew kept up a hectic pace until 21 September when her relief arrived, and she headed for the Philippines.

Forced to turn back to Yokosuka by Typhoon Ida, she set out once more on 24 October and, after stops at Midway and Pearl Harbor, reached San Diego on 7 November.

[3] His experiences during the war haunted him for the rest of his life, particularly the loss of Americans during the Battle of Iwo Jima, as well as the sinking of vessels by Taussig which were known to have women and children aboard.