The ship that transported the Japanese party to the surrender ceremony that ended World War II (above) was a destroyer that earned battle stars in both the American (Atlantic) and

Click on any image to view it in more detail.

Asiatic-Pacific areas—USS Lansdowne, DD 486.
   Named for the commanding officer of the first US rigid airship, Shenandoah, who lost his life when she crashed in a storm in 1925, Lansdowne was laid down with Duncan at Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Kearny, NJ, on 31 July 1941; the two were also launched the same day, 20 February 1942. Lansdowne commissioned 28 April 1942, the 41st ship of the combined Benson-Gleaves class.
   Like other ships of Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 12 from Federal commissioned that spring, Lansdowne completed shakedown along the Atlantic seaboard. Unlike others, she earned three battle stars for before transiting to the Pacific, sinking U-153 off Panama, 13 July.
   On 6 September, Lansdowne joined Wasp’s Task Force 18 with Laffey, Duncan, and cruisers Salt Lake City and Helena. Nine days later, when Wasp was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine (in a spread that also hit O’Brien, escorting Hornet nearby), Lansdowne took aboard aboard 460 of her 1,946 survivors, then scuttled her with torpedoes.
   Lansdowne‘s record in the Guadalcanal campaign was representative of her squadron—although she missed the Battle of Cape Esperance with flagship Farenholt, Laffey, Duncan, McCalla and Buchanan in October—until she grounded in the Russell Islands 26 February, damaging both screws. Repaired in April at San Francisco, she operated in the Aleutian Islands beginning in May, then rejoined the squadron at Espiritu Santo in July.
   Action for the remainder of 1943 reflected the progress of operations in the Solomon Islands—anti-shipping, bombardment and

Three by Ens. Dan Teis.

escort duty to Vella Lavella in September, to Bougainville beginning in November and to Green Island and the approaches to Rabaul in early 1944.
   In February, the squadron—now Farenholt, Buchanan, Woodworth, Lansdowne and Lardner—carried out raids on Rabaul 18 February and Kavieng a week later, when Lansdowne sank a 6,800-ton Japanese cargo ship. After operating northwest of the Admiralties, Lansdowne and Lardner operated with DesRon 2, escorting Seventh Fleet escort carriers during landings on New Guinea’s north coast and air attacks on Palau, Yap, Ulithi. After a refit at Pearl Harbor in May,

Lansdowne, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945. Click on any image to view it in more detail.

Lansdowne spent June operating with Fifth Fleet in the Marianas, then returned to Bremerton for an overhaul.
   From October to the following May, she was assigned to escort and patrol duty in the Carolines. Transferred to Okinawa, where she was narrowly missed by a suicide plane on one occasion, she joined Third Fleet carriers operating off Japan in the final days of the war.
   On 27 August, with Buchanan and Lardner, Lansdowne escorted South Dakota into Sagami Wan and into Tokyo Bay two days later.
   On 2 September, Lansdowne transported the Japanese delegation to the surrender ceremony, then operated with units of the Allied Prisoner of War Rescue Group until 15 October, when she sailed for the east coast via Singapore, Colombo and Capetown, and arrived Brooklyn Navy Yard December 1945.
   Lansdowne decommissioned at Charleston 2 May 1946, then was recommissioned and transferred to Turkey, 10 June 1949. She served as Gaziantep (D-344) until 1973.
   Lansdowne earned 12 battle stars for action in World War II. She was also named in wording for a Navy Unit Commendation for Task Force 38.