USS Poole (DE-151)


USS Poole was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean the Pacific Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys.
She was named in honor of Gunners Mate First Class Minor Butler Poole who was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism and courageous devotion to duty while in charge of the Forward Magazine Flooding Control Station aboard during the Battle of Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal, on the night of 11–12 October 1942. He gave up his life in an attempt to reach the flooding panel through overpowering gas fumes, 12 October 1942.
Poole was laid down by the Consolidated Steel Co., Orange, Texas, 13 February 1943; launched 8 May 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Minor Herndon Poole, mother of Minor Butler Poole. Poole's mother used a bottle filled with water from Liberty Creek in Mississippi to christen the ship instead of the traditional Champagne. She used it because her son learned to swim in the waters of the creek. Poole was commissioned 29 September 1943, Comdr. R. D. Dean, USCG, in command.

World War II North Atlantic operations

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Poole took on coastwise escort duties, and toward the end of the year extended her escort services to transatlantic runs. She departed New York to escort a convoy to Casablanca, arriving 11 January 1944. Returning to New York 5 February, she shifted to the North Atlantic sea lanes and for the next 15 months escorted high speed convoys to ports in the United Kingdom and, after June 1944, on the European Continent.

Transfer to the Pacific Theatre

On 4 June 1945, Escort Division 22, led by Poole, departed New York for the Pacific theater. Arriving at Pearl Harbor 14 July, she conducted patrols there for the remainder of the war. On 4 September she departed Pearl Harbor and proceeded to Saipan, thence to Honshū, where she joined the occupation forces.

End-of-War Decommissioning

After a month of occupation patrol duty off Wakayama, Japan, Poole was underway 29 October for San Diego, California, whence she steamed to the East Coast, reaching Charleston, South Carolina, 10 December. Later shifted to Green Cove Springs, Florida, she decommissioned in January 1947 and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet where she remained until she was stricken from the Navy list on 2 January 1971. She was sold 30 January 1974 and scrapped.