Butler -class destroyer escort in service with the United States Navy from to and from to She was sunk as a target in Albert William Tweedy, Jr. He enrolled at Williams College , Williamstown, Massachusetts , in late Minutes later, the Battle of Midway commenced as planes from the Imperial Japanese Navy carriers pounded the Marine installations on Midway, and outdated American fighter planes based at Midway were dispatched by the newer and nimbler Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zeros in the opening stages of the battle.
Despite a fearsome antiaircraft barrage and repeated attacks by the numerically superior enemy fighter planes, Lt. Tweedy dove his aircraft to a perilously low altitude before releasing a bomb over the carrier. Japanese fighters then attacked and shot down Tweedy's plane. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. Albert William Tweedy, Lt. Tweedy's mother; and commissioned on 12 February , Lt. Thomas Donald Cunningham in command. On completion of her fitting out, Tweedy departed Boston, Massachusetts , on 1 March and steamed for Bermuda where she conducted shakedown exercises through the end of the month.
En route from Bermuda to Boston on 30 and 31 March, the destroyer escort conducted an unproductive hour search for a German submarine known to be lurking in the coastal shipping lanes. She began April moored in Boston, then moved south for firing tests in the Chesapeake Bay before arriving at Miami, Florida , on the 18th. There, she began the duties which were to occupy her throughout most of World War II.
Assigned to the Naval Training Center, Miami, she operated off the Florida Keys , conducting indoctrination cruises for student officers and nucleus crews. Occasionally putting in at Charleston, South Carolina , for repairs or alterations, she continued in this essential but inconspicuous role, supplying the fleets with trained personnel, into the early months of In April , she rescued six downed aviators from a Navy flying boat and conducted a submarine search north of San Salvador.
In June , she put in at Charleston to undergo availability in preparation for assignment to Destroyer Escort Division From mid-June until late October, she participated in exercises in Casco Bay with that division. On 21 October, she moored at Boston for Navy Day activities. There, she prepared for inactivation.
