USS Thornton (DD-270/AVD-11) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II.

She then steamed slowly up the western coast of Mexico, stopping along the way at Salina Cruz, Manzanillo and Guaymas to show the flag.

Accordingly, she was recommissioned, in ordinary, on 24 June 1940 and moved to the San Francisco yard of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation for conversion.

Ten days later, the seaplane tender arrived in Pearl Harbor, and she operated in the Hawaiian Islands until August 1942.

The combined fire of Thornton and Hulbert (AVD-6) accounted for at least one Japanese torpedo bomber and probably discouraged two more from making a run on Neosho (AO-23) as the oiler changed berths during the second dive-bombing attack between 0910 and 0917.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, she was stationed at French Frigate Shoals with Ballard (AVD-10) as aircraft rescue ships for the planes engaged in the expanded air searches.

Coincidentally, the Japanese had planned to use the French Frigate Shoals as a rendezvous point for the second half of Operation K, the reconnaissance of Pearl Harbor.

On 5 April 1945, while operating in the Ryūkyūs as part of the Search and Reconnaissance Group of the Southern Attack Force, Thornton collided with Ashtabula (AO-51) and Escalante (AO-70).

On the 29th, a board of inspection and survey recommended that Thornton be decommissioned, beached, stripped of all useful materiel as needed, and then abandoned.