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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Photo # NH 98068:  USS Black at sea, circa 1968

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Black (DD-666), 1943-1971

USS Black, a 2050-ton Fletcher class destroyer built at Kearny, New Jersey, was commissioned in May 1943. After shakedown and training in the western Atlantic and Caribbean areas, she passed through the Panama Canal in mid-November 1943 to join the war against Japan. Black's first combat operations took place during that month and the next, as she served in the newly-captured Gilbert Islands on patrol, escort and air-sea rescue duties. In the first seven months of 1944 the destroyer participated in the campaigns to capture positions in the Marshalls, Admiralties, northern New Guinea and the Marianas. She was next in combat during the invasion of Leyte in October and subsequently escorted reinforcement convoys to the Philippines. In addition to performing screening missions during this time, Black occasionally used her guns to bombard the enemy ashore.

Following overhaul in the United States, Black returned to the Western Pacific in March 1945 and immediately took part in aircraft carrier raids on Japan. She served as a radar picket ship and carrier escort during much of the long and brutal Okinawa campaign in April, May and June, surviving several air attacks with minor damage. In July Black screened battleships and cruisers during two bombardments of the Japanese home islands and, on 15 August 1945, the day Japan agreed to surrender, was present during one of the Pacific War's final Kamikaze suicide plane attacks. After supporting occupation operations off China and Korea in September and October, Black steamed back to the U.S. West Coast, where she was placed out of commission in August 1946.

The Cold War brought Black back into commission in July 1951. Atlantic Fleet service followed, broken by a Korean War deployment that took her around the World, westbound, between January and August 1953. At the beginning of 1955 she permanently returned to the Pacific. Over the next decade and a half, Black regularly crossed the great ocean to take her place as a unit of the Seventh Fleet, serving as an aircraft carrier escort, taking part in antisubmarine warfare exercises, patrolling in the Taiwan Strait and visiting ports throughout the Far East. Her tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth post-World War II Western Pacific deployments, beginning in early 1965, included Vietnam War service. Among her duties during this time were early participation in "Market Time" coastal patrol and interdiction operations, providing naval gunfire support for forces ashore and screening carriers as they took the war to the North Vietnamese enemy. USS Black's last overseas cruise ended in July 1969. She was decommissioned in late September of that year and sold for scrapping in February 1971.

USS Black was named in honor of Lieutenant Commander Hugh D. Black (1903-1942), who was killed in action during the sinking of USS Jacob Jones (DD-130) in February 1942.

This page features nearly all the views we have related to USS Black (DD-666).


If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."

Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.

Photo #: NH 98065

USS Black (DD-666)


Underway in a Pacific harbor, May 1945.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 87KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98066

USS Black (DD-666)


Underway during the early 1950s, probably soon after she was recommissioned in July 1951.
The ship is still essentially in her late World War II configuration.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 117KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 91901

USS Black (DD-666)


At sea, following her mid-1950s modernization, in which she lost one 5"/38 gun mount and received three 3"/50 twin mounts.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 85KB; 740 x 600 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98067

USS Black (DD-666)


At sea in January 1962.
Photographed by Woody.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 76KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98068

USS Black (DD-666)


Steaming at sea, circa 1968.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 119KB; 740 x 615 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-227950

Aitape, New Guinea, Operation, April 1944


Part of Task Force 77 en route for the Aitape invasion, 21 April 1944. The landings took place on the following day.
Photographed from USS Manila Bay (CVE-61).
USS Black (DD-666) is at right. A large force of amphibious shipping and warships is visible on the horizon.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 89KB; 740 x 600 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 
Photo #: NH 98070

USS Black (DD-666)


Refueling at sea from USS Eldorado (AGC-11), 14 November 1960.
Note boat cradles on Eldorado's deck, and life jackets worn by her crewmen.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 105KB; 740 x 610 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98069

USS Ajax (AR-6)


Flagship of Commander Service Squadron THREE, with five Seventh Fleet destroyers alongside, circa 1962.
The destroyers are (from left to right):
USS Ernest G. Small (DDR-838);
USS Rupertus (DD-851);
USS Trathen (DD-530);
USS Cowell (DD-547); and
USS Black (DD-666).

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 97KB; 740 x 520 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98071

USS Black (DD-666)


Crewmen working over the ship's side chipping paint, while she was at the Naval Station, San Diego, California, in November 1968.
Note ratguard on the mooring line at left.
Photographed by PHCS Herman Schroeder, USN.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 111KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98077

USS Black (DD-666)


Eugene Bricker of Fresno, California, is carried ashore to a Navy ambulance to be taken to Balboa Naval Hospital, at San Diego, California, 14 July 1969. Bricker, a crewman of the yacht Mahia, was injured at sea about 1100 miles WSW of San Diego during the Trans-Pacific Yacht Race to Hawaii. Returning from a six-month deployment to the Western Pacific, the San Diego based Black responded to the Mahia's call for assistance, detouring 180 miles to effect an emergency evacuation of the injured man.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, from the Collections of the Naval Historical Center.

Online Image: 128KB; 740 x 605 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 64751-KN (Color)

Insignia of USS Black (DD-666)

This emblem was used during World War II.

Courtesy of Harrold F. Monning, USS Kidd Association, 1966.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 59KB; 600 x 675 pixels

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Black (DD-666). The following list features some of these images:

The images listed below are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".



  • Photo #: 80-G-68232
    USS Black (DD-666) underway in calm water, off New York City, photographed by the New York Navy Yard, 6 June 1943.
    Starboard broadside aerial view.


  • Photo #: USN 1045420
    Starboard bow aerial view of USS Black (DD-666) underway, circa 1951-52, while still essentially in her World War II configuration.
    This photo was received by the Naval Photographic Center in December 1959, but was taken just after Black reentered active service in the early 1950s.


  • Photo #: USN 1078699
    USS Black (DD-666) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, November 1959. Photographed by PH1 Groves.
    Starboard bow surface view.

  • Photo #: USN 1053013
    USS Black (DD-666) leaving Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 12 January 1961. Photographed by PH2 D.L. Little, of Naval Air Station Barber's Point.
    Bow-on high aerial view.

  • Photo #: USN 1053014
    USS Black (DD-666) leaving Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 12 January 1961. Photographed by PH2 D.L. Little, of Naval Air Station Barber's Point.
    Bow-on low aerial view, taken from about masthead height.

  • Photo #: USN 1053689
    USS Black (DD-666) underway at sea, 3 February 1961. Photographed by PHC Tooker, of squadron VCP-61.
    Starboard broadside aerial view, taken from well aft of amidships.

  • Photo #: Navy KN-9041 (color)
    USS Black (DD-666) underway off Oahu, 21 March 1964.
    Port broadside aerial view, taken from aft of amidships.

  • Photo #: USN 1097428
    USS Black (DD-666) arriving at Pearl Harbor, 19 March 1964. Photographed by PH3 B.J. Long.
    Starboard broadside surface view, taken from well forward of amidships. The ship is framed by a palm tree. Her crew, dressed in whites, is manning the rail at several positions along her main deck and superstructure.

  • Photo #: USN 1106529
    USS Black (DD-666) underway at sea, 31 May 1964. Photographed by Petree.
    Port bow surface view, taken from a height about halfway between the pilothouse top and the masthead.

  • Photo #: Navy K-87758 (color)
    USS Black (DD-666) moored to a plastic mooring bouy in San Diego harbor, California, during a test by the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory of plastic bouys to replace steel ones. Photo was received by the Naval Photographic Center in January 1971.
    Nearly bow-on surface view, taken from somewhat to starboard. The bouy is partially visible in the extreme foreground, with a mooring chain running up to the ship's bullnose.

    Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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    Page made 27 September 2002