USS Cotten, a 2050-ton Fletcher class destroyer, was built at Kearny, New Jersey. Placed in commission in July 1943, she steamed to the Pacific in October to join the war against Japan. The following month the destroyer screened escort aircraft carriers during the assault on the Gilbert Islands. Between late January and early May 1944 Cotten accompanied the Fifth Fleet's fast aircraft carriers during the campaigns to seize bases in the Marshall Islands and northern New Guinea and during raids on Japanese shipping and facilities in the Carolines and Palaus. She next escorted the carriers during the Battle of the Philippine Sea, landings in the Marianas and strikes on enemy positions in the central Pacific and the Bonin Islands.
During the last four months of 1944 and the first month of 1945 Cotten operated with the carriers as they attacked the Palaus, Okinawa, Formosa, the Philippines and the Asian mainland. She also participated in the late October 1944 Battle of Leyte Gulf. In February and March 1945 the destroyer escorted aircraft carriers and provided gunfire support during the Iwo Jima Operation. Following a shipyard overhaul on the U.S. West Coast, Cotten returned to the western Pacific war zone just as Japan was in the process of surrendering. She remained in the region for most of the rest of the year, then steamed back to California and then onward to the East Coast, where she arrived in January 1946. Decommissioned in mid-July 1946, she was laid up in "mothballs" at Charleston, South Carolina, for the next half-decade.
The Korean War crisis brought Cotten back into active service. Recommissioned in early July 1951, she served in the Atlantic until May 1953, when she departed for a cruise around the World that included several months in the western Pacific and off Korea. Returning to the East Coast early in 1954, Cotten deployed to the Mediterranean Sea in 1955, 1957 and 1959. In 1957 and 1959 she also operated off Africa and in the Persian Gulf. USS Cotten was placed out of commission in May 1960 and remained in the Reserve Fleet until stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in December 1974. She was sold for scrapping in July 1975.
This page features all the views we have concerning USS Cotten (DD-669).
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.
In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Cotten (DD-669). 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".
USS Cotten (DD-669) underway at low speed off New York City, 14 August 1943. Photographed from an aircraft based at Naval Air Station, New York. High aerial view, taken from directly ahead. As 80-G-77803, but port bow high aerial view. As 80-G-77803, but starboard broadside (slightly toward the bow) high aerial view.
USS Cotten (DD-669) underway in San Diego harbor, California, circa mid-1953. This photo was received by the Naval Photographic Center in December 1959, but was taken during Cotten's 1953 "round the World" cruise. Port quarter low aerial view, with Naval Air Station North Island in the background. USS Cotten (DD-669) operating in the Korean area with Task Force 77, 29 October 1953. Port bow high aerial view, showing the ship underway at relatively low speed.
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." |
Page made 8 February 2007