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Destroyer Squadron 2 is a Destroyer squadron of the United States Navy. It is administratively part of Commander, Naval Surface Forces Atlantic. , the following destroyers are assigned to this squadron: , , , , , and . Destroyer Squadron 2 is assigned to Carrier Strike Group Twelve. ==Interwar period== Following the end of World War I, the U.S. Navy possessed an unprecedented number of destroyers, increased dramatically with the war emergency program ships of the Wickes class destroyer and Clemson class destroyer – known collectively as "flush-deckers" that differed from previous destroyer types that had been distinguished by raised forecastle decks. Destroyer Squadron Two first appeared in the U.S. Fleet organization in the spring of 1919, assigned to the Atlantic Fleet with USS Columbia (C-12) as its flagship. It comprised three destroyer flotillas, each composed of three six-ship divisions. The U.S. Pacific Fleet organization of 1 August 1919 lists Destroyer Squadron Two as a reserve force, the squadron flag in USS ''Salem''. It consisted of Flotilla Ten, comprising Division 29 (six ships), Division 30 (three ships), and Division 31 (six ships), and Flotilla Eleven, comprising six six-ship divisions (22, 23, 35, 32, 33 and 34), nine of the latter's ships apparently under construction, with names not yet assigned, in that they are listed only by number; some did not have commanding officers ordered to them. The ships were in caretaker status, an arrangement that continued into the summer of 1920. By September 1920, when the term "squadron" came into its present usage, Squadron Two returned to the U.S. Atlantic Fleet's Destroyer Force as part of Flotilla Three, and comprised three divisions (27, 40, and 41) of reserve destroyers. By New Year's Day 1921, Division 27 was assigned to operate in European waters, as were two ships from Division 40 (the rest remaining in reserve but with one ship—Overton (DD-239) -- actually assigned to Division 27), and three from Division 41 (the rest in reserve). A month later, however (1 February 1921), the assignment table still carries Squadron Two under Flotilla Three, but with only one division of five ships assigned (and one of them—Bainbridge (DD-246) -- still building) and based at Charleston, S.C. Only three of the ships in that division, however, which was carried as being in reserve had been in that unit the previous month. The table of assignment of U.S. ships for 1 September 1922 carries only four active destroyer squadrons – Nine and Fourteen in the Atlantic Fleet and Eleven and Twelve in the Pacific—each squadron consisting of three six-ship divisions, with a flagship for each squadron. During 1922, DesRon 2's three divisions operated with 50-percent crews as a result of post-World War I budget reductions. At that same juncture, a second table of that date (September 1922 ), set forth the "general plan for the organization of the United States Fleet when the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets are united for combined operations," including "the assignment of certain vessels not now in commission" lists Squadron Two as under Destroyer Squadrons, Scouting Force. Squadron Two in that () organization comprised Divisions Four, Five, and Six, each consisting of six ships, with a squadron leader. The unit was not homogenous, however, consisting of a mix of older destroyers such as Allen (DD-66) and the flush-deckers of the War Emergency Program. The Table of Organization for the United States Fleet for 1 April 1931 reflected the reappearance of Destroyer Squadron Two as part of Destroyer Flotilla Two, Destroyers, Battle Force, as part of the organization mandated in General Order No. 211 of 10 December 1930. It also marks the appearance of four-ship, vice the six-ship, divisions that had existed through 1930. Squadron Two, the flag in , at that point consisted of three divisions of flush-deckers: Division Four, consisting of Dent (DD-116), Rathburne (DD-113), Talbot (DD-114) and Waters (DD-115); Five: , Elliot (DD-146), Lea (DD-118), and Roper (DD-147); and Six: Aaron Ward (DD-132), Buchanan (DD-131), Crowninshield (DD-134), and Hale (DD-133). On 1 August 1932, Division Six's four ships were placed in Rotating Reserve Squadron 20, the Battle Force's first rotating reserve commission pool at Mare Island, Vallejo, California, replaced by Evans (DD-78), Philip (DD-76), Tracy (DD-214) and Wickes (DD-75). By the following spring, the old Division Six that had been in rotating reserve became the new Division Four, while the rest of the squadron composition remained unchanged. Borie (DD-215) became the new squadron flagship by 1 July 1933, relieved by the beginning of 1934 by Decatur (DD-341) while Squadron Two's three divisions went through Rotating Reserve Squadron 20 into the spring of 1935, with essentially sixteen ships rotating through the squadron during that time. Between 1933 and 1935, each of DesRon 2's divisions took a turn spending six months pierside with a caretaker crew. With fiscal constraints, the rotating reserve system permitted the Fleet to conserve scarce manpower while keeping its destroyers as prepared as possible. By October 1935, DesRon 2 gained another four-ship division, Division 19. Ships of DesRon 2 participated in training exercises in 1936, with Decatur and Roper joining the Battle Fleet on the west coast to participate in Fleet Landing Exercise (FLEX) No. 3 – part of a series of such evolutions carried out to develop amphibious warfare tactics. Destroyer Squadron Two was decommissioned at San Diego at the start of 1937 (with Roper and Decatur going to Squadron Ten), to be re-equipped with new Mahan class destroyers. By that point, DesRon 2's new ships represented the pinnacle of American destroyer design. Unlike previous destroyer organization, where the squadron flagship was a sistership to those that made up the squadron, the new squadron flagship would be a different class of ship from those that made up the divisions. Under the reorganization of the fleet announced by Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson on 26 May 1937, effective 14 June 1937, Squadron Two, under Destroyer Flotilla One, Destroyers, Scouting Force, U.S. Fleet, would consist of Division Three and Division Four, each consisting of four Mahan-class destroyers—DesDiv 3: Drayton (DD-366), Mahan (DD-364), Flusser (DD-368), and Lamson (DD-367); and DesDiv 4: Cushing (DD-376), Preston (DD-379), Smith (DD-378), and Perkins (DD-377), with Porter (DD-356), leader of the new class of "destroyer leaders," serving as squadron flagship. Soon thereafter, ships of the newly reconstituted Squadron Two participated in the intensive search for the famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart (), her navigator Frederick J. Noonan, and their twin-engine Lockheed 10-E Electra that had disappeared en route to Howland Island. On 4 July 1937, Lamson and Drayton from DesDiv 3 and Cushing from DesDiv 4 (severe vibrations in her port high pressure turbine compelled Perkins to return to San Diego for a tender availability) joined the carrier Lexington (CV-2), with Capt. Jonathan S. Dowell, ComDesRon 2, assuming command of the search group. Despite six days of efforts, however, often hindered by heavy squalls, 143,242 miles flown by the carrier's scout planes, and 151,556 square miles searched, the group turned up nothing. As Captain Dowell summarized the search: "No sign nor any evidence of the Earhart plane was discovered." As the Fleet expanded as the world drifted toward war, inevitable changes occurred in fleet organization and employment while training proceeded during 1938 and 1939. At the start of 1940, Squadron Two still consisted of the flagship Porter and two divisions of four Mahan-class ships that had equipped the squadron since it had been reconstituted in early 1937. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt retained the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in the spring of 1940, following the conclusion of Fleet Problem XXI, Squadron Two's destroyers began operations from that base. Troubled world conditions led to a cancellation of the Fleet Problem (XXII) scheduled for 1941. Squadron composition again became homogenous during 1941 with nine Sims (DD-409)-class destroyers: Morris (DD-417) (flagship), Sims, Hughes (DD-410), Anderson (DD-411), and Hammann (DD-412) formed DesDiv 3, while Mustin (DD-413), Russell (DD-414), O'Brien (DD-415) and Walke (DD-416) formed DesDiv 4. Originally operating in the Pacific, the Sims-class ships that comprised Squadron Two were transferred to the Atlantic (the movements highly secret, with the ships' prominent black-shadowed white hull numbers, as well as the names in black letters at their sterns being painted out) beginning in the spring of 1941, basing upon Argentia, Newfoundland; Iceland; Narragansett Bay; Casco Bay, Maine; and Boston, Massachusetts. Initially, Squadron Two was assigned to Task Force 4 (1 April 1941), then to Task Force 1 (1 July 1941). That autumn, Squadron Two's ships escorted convoys in the North Atlantic, depth-charging suspected U-boat contacts. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Destroyer Squadron 2」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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