U.S. NAVY
U.S.S. SIMS

Laid down in July 1937 as the lead ship of her class of Fleet Destroyers, USS Sims commissioned into service with the US Navy's Atlantic Fleet on August 1st, 1939. Joining the American Neutrality Patrol in Caribbean and South Atlantic waters as the situation in Europe deteriorated, she shifted her operations to the North Atlantic escorting convoys from the American mainland to Iceland.

Pulled from her North Atlantic duties by the outbreak of war with Japan, the Sims and her crew were ordered to join Task Force 17 built around the USS Yorktown (CV-5) and promptly sailed for Pacific waters. Getting her first taste of combat against the Japanese on January 28th as aircraft from the Yorktown attacked the Marshall Islands, the Sims and her Destroyer Squadron continued their escort of the Yorktown into the contested waters around New Guinea where further airstrikes took place in March.

Word reached Task Force 17 in late April that a large Japanese surface force which included several carriers was moving into their area to attack the Allied base at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Task Force 17 and her ships split into two groups to meet the attack; one centered around the Yorktown and the other centered around the USS Lexington (CV-2) as they made for a body of water known as the Coral Sea. Refueled and rearmed enroute, the Sims drew the assignment of escorting the Fleet Oiler USS Neosho (AO-23) as she replenished the force. With her task completed, the Sims and Neosho departed the task force on the morning of May 7th and were withdrawing from the area when they were sighted by a Japanese scout plane hunting for the American Fleet.

Believing the large Neosho to be an Aircraft Carrier and the Sims to be an escorting Cruiser, the pilot reported his sighting to his command and caused Japanese Admiral Takeo Takagi to order a large air strike dispatched to destroy the ships. Aboard the Sims, crews were unaware they had been spotted or were in any real danger until lookouts sighted a force of 15 bombers closing on the ships from high altitude at 0930hrs. Going to battle stations and beginning aggressive evasive maneuvering, the Sims and Neosho managed to avoid the bombs dropped by the first wave, and all but one bomb which grazed the Sims during a second wave which appeared at 1038hrs.

As the second wave withdrew the Sims and Neosho made flank speed to the South hoping to outrange any further attacks as their requests for assistance were denied by Task Force 17's Commander, then heavily occupied in the Battle of Coral Sea raging to the North. Very much alone in open waters, the sighting of a 36-strong force of inbound dive bombers shortly before 1130hrs by lookouts aboard the Neosho spelled serious trouble for both ships. Resuming evasive maneuvers and flanking the Neosho so the two vessels could combine their anti-aircraft firepower, the Sims crew unleashed every weapon onboard at their attackers, but were quickly overwhelmed by the seasoned Japanese pilots who split up and attacked simultaneously from different directions. Two bombers attacking from her Port quarter put two 500lb armor piercing bombs into the Sims' engine room where they blew out her hull and knocked out her engines, followed mere seconds later by a third which came down on her Starboard side just foreword of her funnel. Mortally wounded, the Sims forward momentum began to buckle her weakened hull amidships which caused several bulkheads to fail and allowed catastrophic flooding to bring the ship lower and lower in the water. Topside crew began abandoning ship as she began sinking Stern-first but men located below had little chance to escape from their compartments before the Sims went down at this location just before 1145hrs on May 7th, 1942. Many of the men who managed to get off the ship before she sank were killed by a massive underwater explosion from the Sims, either from her boilers or depth charges detonating as she sank. By the time the last bombers had withdrawn from the area, only 15 of Sims' 192 man crew were rescued by the severely damaged, but still afloat Neosho.

For her actions on the date of her loss, USS Sims received her second and final Battle Star for World War Two service.