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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Aaron Ward (DM 34)
ex-DD-773



Call sign:
Nan - Tare - Sugar - Mike
Allen M. Sumner Class Destroyer/Robert H. Smith Light Minelayer: Laid down 12 December 1943 as DD-773 by the Bethlehem Steel Co., San Pedro, CA.; Launched, 5 May 1944; Reclassified a Light Minelayer, DM-34, 19 July 1944; Commissioned USS Aaron Ward (DM-34), 28 October 1944; Decommissioned 28 September 1945 and struck from the Navy Register; Sold for scrap in July 1946.

Specifications: Displacement 2,380 t.(lt) - 3,370 t.(fl); Length 376' 6"; Beam 40' 10"; Draft 18' 10"; Speed 34kts; Complement 363; Armament three twin 5"/38 dual purpose gun mounts, six twin 40mm gun mounts, eleven 20mm guns, two .50 cal. machine guns, two dct, four dcp; Propulsion four Babcock and Wilcox boilers, two General Electric geared turbines, 60,000shp at 36.5kts, two shafts, Range 3,300 nm at 20kts.

Click on thumbnail
for full size image		 Size Image Description Source
Aaron Ward 83k Rear Admiral Aaron Ward, USN. Portrait photograph, in Special Full Dress uniform, taken circa 1910-1913.
Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Naval Historical Center photo NH 98489		 Bill Gonyo
Aaron Ward 100k - Hyperwar U.S. Navy in WW II
Aaron Ward 88k - Hyperwar U.S. Navy in WW II
Aaron Ward 173k Photographed on 17 November 1944. The ship is painted in Camouflage Measure 32, Design 11a.
Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1975
U.S. Navy photo NH 83213		 Naval Historical Center
Aaron Ward 131k Kerama Retto, 4 May 1945 showing kamikaze damage.
US Navy photo		 USS LCS(L)3 1-130 Association
Aaron Ward 174k Damage amidships received during Kamikaze attacks off Okinawa on 3 May 1945. View looks down and aft from Aaron Ward's foremast, with her greatly distorted forward smokestack in the lower center. Photographed while the ship was in the Kerama Retto on 5 May 1945. A mine is visible at left,on the ship's starboard mine rails.
U.S. Navy photo 80-G-330107		 Naval Historical Center
Aaron Ward 106k In the Kerama Retto anchorage, 5 May 1945, showing damage received when she was hit by several Japanese suicide planes off Okinawa on 3 May. Note three-bladed aircraft propeller lodged in her superstructure, just forward of the after 5"/38 twin gun mount.
Collection of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN
U.S. Navy photo NH 62571		 Naval Historical Center
Aaron Ward 88k In the Kerama Retto anchorage, 5 May 1945, showing damage received when she was hit by several Kamikazes off Okinawa on 3 May.
Collection of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN
U.S. Navy photo NH 2572		 Naval Historical Center
Aaron Ward 130k 9 September 1945 -
View the Aaron Ward (DM-34)
DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway web site
Naval Minewarfare Association
Association of Minemen
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