USS O'Toole (DE-527)
USS O'Toole (DE-527) was an Evarts-class destroyer escort in the United States Navy during World War II. She served in the North Atlantic to defend convoys from German submarines and aircraft, carried out escort duties, and helped hunt submarines before returning home after the war.
John Albert O'Toole, the ship’s namesake, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1916. He joined the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1942 and served on the USS Joseph Hewes. He commanded a boat crew during the assault on Fedhala, Morocco, in 1942 and was killed while helping withdraw from the beach; he was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
O'Toole was laid down on 25 September 1943 at the Boston Navy Yard, launched on 2 November 1943, and commissioned on 22 January 1944.
After a shakedown off Bermuda, she trained with the Fleet Sound School in Key West. She then went to Casco Bay and Norfolk to escort ships to Recife, Brazil, and returned with other escorts to Norfolk and New York, where she joined Destroyer Escort Division 80 for transatlantic convoy duty. Her first convoy mission began on 9 September, serving as a liaison ship for a convoy from New York to the Azores and then to Falmouth, England, arriving on 18 October. On 8 November she escorted the ATF Abnaki from Reykjavík.
From Iceland she returned to Norfolk and New York, rejoining CortDiv 80. In mid-December she escorted convoy UGS 64 to North Africa and back in January 1945. She completed another Mediterranean run in April 1945 and was on the way home when the war in Europe ended. She arrived in New York on 23 May 1945, operated off the New England coast, then spent a brief period in Miami as a school ship.
In September 1945 she moved to Charleston for inactivation. Her final commander was Lt. Comdr. Lanson B. Ditto. O'Toole was decommissioned on 18 October 1945, struck from the Navy List on 1 November 1945, and scrapped in March 1946.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:03 (CET).