USS Osmond Ingram
The USS Osmond Ingram was a Clemson-class destroyer laid down by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company's Fore River Shipyard at Quincy, Massachusetts on October 15, 1918, launched on February 28, 1919, and commissioned as DD-225 in Boston on June 28, 1919 for service in the United States Navy. Lieutenant Commander M. B. DeMott was the ship's first chief officer.
The ship was named in memory of Gunner’s Mate First Class Osmond Kelly Ingram, who was killed while laboring to save his shipmates on the USS Cassin by jettisoning ammunition stores ahead of a torpedo strike off the coast of Ireland in October 1917. Ingram was the first enlisted serviceman from the United States killed in World War I, and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. Ingram's mother, Naomi launched the ship at Quincy.
The USS Osmond Ingram was decommissioned on June 24, 1922 and kept in reserve in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The destroyer was re-commissioned as a seaplane tender, designated AVD-9 on August 2, 1940 as the United States prepared for the likelihood of entering World War II. That winter she sailed for port in San Juan, Puerto Rico for service tending patrol planes in the Caribbean, and later in the vicinity of the Panama Canal, and the Galápagos Islands. The ship resumed duty as a destroyer, designated DD-255 on December 1, 1941 and escorted movements between Trinidad, Recife and Belém before being sent to Newfoundland to join an antisubmarine patrol led by the USS Bogue which succeeded in opening a passage across the Atlantic, partly by destroying the German U-172 on December 13, 1943. The unit was awarded a Presidential Citation for its efforts.
The USS Osmond Ingram continued to escort trans-Atlantic movements in early 1944, but was ordered to the Charleston Navy Yard in June for conversion to high-speed transport. She was recommissioned as APD-35 on June 22, 1944 and joined with amphibious forces in the Mediterranean, participating in pre-invasion assaults that provided cover for the D-Day invasion at Normandy. She continued to escort convoys along the French and Italian coasts, returning to the Norfolk Navy Yard in December, and later to the Pacific theater. She visited New York, Panama, San Deigo, Pearl Harbor, Eniwetok and Ulithi before April and joined the invasion force that secured Okinawa and escorting transports between various islands before joining the occupation force in Japan, spending time in Wakayama, Kure and Nagoya before returning home in 1946.
The USS Osmond Ingram was decommissioned at Philadelphia on January 8, 1946 and struck from the Navy List four days later. She was sold to Hugo Neu for scrap that June.
A plaque commemorating the USS Osmond Ingram is attached to a granite monument placed on the northeast corner of Kelly Ingram Park.
References
- "USS Osmond Ingram (DD-255)" (June 1, 2017) Wikipedia - accessed July 29, 2018
External links
- USS Osmond Ingram at navsource.org