page_title: USS O'Flaherty
section_title: Iwo Jima
hierarchical_section_title: USS O'Flaherty / Construction and service / Iwo Jima
caption_attribution_description: English: Pilot Transfer by "breeches buoy" (basket) from USS O'Flaherty (DE-340) back to CVE. Possible "swap" for Ice Cream
context_page_description: USS O'Flaherty was a John C. Butler-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was named for Ensign Frank Woodrow O'Flaherty, a pilot who posthumously received the Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of Midway.
  Laid down in October 1943, launched in December of that year, and commissioned almost four months later, O'Flaherty served on convoy escort duty in the Pacific from August 1944. She operated out of Pearl Harbor in the eastern Pacific during November and December, initially with a hunter-killer group. During the first half of 1945, O'Flaherty protected escort carriers in the invasion of Lingayen Gulf, the Battle of Iwo Jima, and the Battle of Okinawa, which occurred in rapid succession. In the final months of the war in the Pacific, she returned to convoy escort duty. Decommissioned postwar, O'Flaherty spent more than twenty years in the Pacific Reserve Fleet before being sold for scrap in the early 1970s.
context_section_description: On 10 February, Rear Admiral Calvin Durgin's Support Carrier Group (Task Group 52.2), of the Amphibious Support Force (Task Force 52) of the Fifth Fleet departed Ulithi. O'Flaherty was included in the screen for Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague's Task Unit 52.2.1, centered around five escort carriers – Natoma Bay, Petrof Bay, Sargent Bay, Steamer Bay, and Wake Island. The screen also included the destroyer Ralph Talbot and the destroyer escorts Richard S. Bull, Richard M. Rowell and Grady. The Task Group reached Saipan on 12 February, where final rehearsals were conducted and O'Flaherty briefly detached to Task Unit 52.2.2 on the next day before returning to Task Unit 52.2.1 on 14 February, as the latter steamed towards Iwo Jima together with the shore bombardment force. They took station off Iwo Jima late on 15 February before the escort carriers began launching pre-landing strikes against Japanese positions on it and the Bonin Islands on the morning of the next day.
  Following three days of airstrikes and naval bombardment, the invasion of Iwo Jima began on 19 February. That morning, O'Flaherty expended 541 shells from her 5-inch and AA guns in a failed attempt to sink a naval mine. Later in the day, she picked up the pilot of a crashed FM-2 Wildcat from the escort carrier Anzio. Continuing on screen duty as the escort carrier air groups supported the American advance on the island, the ship transferred the downed aviator to Natoma Bay on 21 February and was detached with Wake Island, Petrof Bay, Grady, and the destroyer Halligan to join Task Units 52.2.2 and 52.2.3 after the fleet carrier Saratoga was knocked out of action by kamikaze attacks. She returned to Task Unit 52.2.1 on 23 February, and remained off Iwo Jima on 8 March with Task Unit 52.2.3 (centered around the escort carriers Wake Island, Saginaw Bay and Tulagi) when Task Unit 52.2.1 departed for Ulithi, as airfields were opened on Iwo Jima for army aircraft that replaced those of the escort carriers in support of the troops. O'Flaherty followed with Task Unit 52.2.3, the last of the escort carriers to leave Iwo Jima, on 11 March, returning to Ulithi three days later. Although many ships were sunk or damaged during the Iwo Jima operation, O'Flaherty escaped unscathed.
caption: A rescued pilot being transferred from O'Flaherty to an escort carrier via breeches buoy
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