The crew of the USS William D. Porter should have had better things to do than worry about some silly “curse.” The ship was a Fletcher-class destroyer, one of more than a thousand warships built after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the United States was fighting a world war. But many of the crew were more concerned with surviving the ship, and not the war. The “Willy Dee” (as it came to be called) appeared to be cursed almost from the day it was launched.
Willy Dee Earns a Cursed Reputation
While an argument could certainly be made about the ship’s bad luck, there are myriad stories to be found online that only seem to pile onto the Willy Dee’s no good bad days. The truth can be hard to suss out, but rest assured – the USS William D. Porter had its share of hard luck. Readers can decide for themselves if it was an actual curse.
The vessel’s first real mission came in November 1943. The USS William D. Porter was assigned to escort the battleship USS Iowa as it ferried President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Cairo and Tehran to meet with Allied leaders Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. Its legend as a cursed ship started right away, but there’s not a lot of evidence for its early bad luck.
The story goes that as the destroyer began to depart from its moorings in Norfolk, Virginia on Nov. 12, 1943, someone forgot to weigh the ship’s anchor. It allegedly careened into another destroyer, ripping off railings, lifeboat mounts, and even the captain’s gig, while doing no damage to itself. While this story adds to the misfortune of the Porter, there is no evidence to support this event, so it either didn’t happen or the Navy was too embarrassed to record it in any logs.
Once underway, our cursed vessel was part of a convoy, led by the USS Iowa and its precious cargo, sailing across the Atlantic ocean while maintaining strict radio silence. Another apocryphal story says that while on alert for German U-boats, an explosion suddenly ripped through the convoy. It turned out that one of the Porter’s depth charges had rolled off the side and into the water below, allegedly the second mishap in as many days, though no evidence supports this, either.
Willy Dee Almost Sank the Iowa
What happened next is true, is supported by documentation, and is more than enough evidence (for sailors, anyway) to claim the William D. Porter was cursed. On Nov. 14, 1943, the President of the United States asked the Iowa and its support vessels if they could conduct an anti-aircraft drill. The Navy was only too happy to oblige their commander-in-chief.
At the same time, the William D. Porter was conducting a torpedo drill, simulating a torpedo launch at sea. The crew of the destroyer simulated the arming and launch of two torpedoes, but accidentally fired the third one. That torpedo headed straight for the Iowa, which was carrying President Roosevelt.
William D. Porter tried to message Iowa from a signal lamp, but accidentally told them the Porter was backing up. It then told Iowa that a missile was coming. Confused and desperate, the destroyer finally broke radio silence to warn the battleship about the incoming torpedo and tell it to move out of the path. Luckily, the ship was able to move, and the torpedo detonated 3,000 yards away. The President’s only response was to ask that his wheelchair be moved so he could see the torpedo.
The ship was ordered to Bermuda for an investigation into the torpedo incident. Chief Torpedoman Lawton Dawson was found liable for failing to remove the weapon’s primer. He was sentenced to 14 years of hard labor, but FDR intervened and pardoned him, certain the incident was just an accident. The William D. Porter was sent to the Aleutian Islands – exiled to Alaska – where Navy leadership probably believed it could do very little damage to itself or anyone else.
Willy Dee Brings Chaos to the Pacific
In Alaska, it picked up another controversial, but probably untrue story, to add to its legend. This story says that a drunken sailor fired one of the ship’s five-inch guns as part of a New Year’s Eve celebration. The shell allegedly destroyed only the flower garden of the installation commander. No one knows exactly which commander, so the story is probably just a sea story.
William D. Porter sailed on submarine escort duty in the Aleutian Islands and Kuril Islands for months before being sent to the Philippines in August 1944. For the rest of 1944, the ship was on escort duty in the Pacific Theater. On April 1, 1945, it took part in the invasion of Okinawa, the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific to that date. Constant enemy air raids on the invasion force forced the Navy to establish a series of picket ships around the island, and “Willy Dee” was sent to this task force. That’s where the final “curse” story takes place – and also happens to be true.
Willy Dee Is Sunk by a Kamikaze
On the morning of June 10, 1945, the William D. Porter was sunk by an aircraft it had already shot down. A Japanese dive bomber appeared in the skies above and came straight for the destroyer for a kamikaze attack. The ship managed to avoid being struck by the suicide attack, but the plane exploded underwater. It was so close to the keel of the ship, however, that the explosion lifted the ship out of the water and plopped it back down again. The crew could not repair the damage, and the ship eventually sank.
Miraculously, not one crew member died in the sinking. Despite this, the “Willy Dee” (as it came to be known) is forever remembered as a cursed ship, with stories popping up from time to time about the vessel’s long run of bad luck – as if almost torpedoing the President of the United States wasn’t enough.
Read About Other Military Myths and Legends
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