Pratt (DE-363)
1944-1972
Malcolm Lewis Pratt, born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, on 5 August 1891, became assistant surgeon with rank of lieutenant (junior grade), USNRF, on 27 March 1917. He received the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism in reestablishing an advanced aid station just demolished by shell-fire in Lucy le Bocage on 11 June 1918, and in continuing to dress and evacuate the wounded under direct and continuous shell-fire at Thiancourt on 13 September. He resigned from the Navy on 13 October 1919.
On 2 May 1941, Pratt reported for active duty again with the rank of lieutenant commander, Medical Corps, USNR, and was attached to the First Marine Division. He accompanied the division to Guadalcanal, where he was reported missing in action as of 13 August 1942, when he failed to return from a patrol near the village of Mantanikau led by Lt.Col. Frank B. Goettge, USMC.
John Lester Pratt, born at Bellefontaine, Ohio, on 27 October 1920, enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on 6 May 1941, four days after his father reported for duty as a lieutenant commander, MC, USNR. John Pratt was appointed a second lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve on 1 November 1941 and first lieutenant on 1 October 1942. He was killed in action on Guadalcanal on 22 January 1943, a little over five months after his father had died on the same island.
(DE-363; displacement 1,745 (full load); length 306'0"; beam 36'8"; draft 9'5" (mean); speed 24 knots; complement 186; armament 2 5-inch, 4 40 millimeter, 10 20 millimeter, 3 21-inch torpedo tubes, 8 depth charge projectors, 1 depth charge projector (hedgehog), 2 depth charge tracks; class John C. Butler)
Pratt (DE-363) was laid down on 11 April 1944 at Orange, Texas, by the Consolidated Steel Corp., Ltd.; launched on 1 June 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Malcolm L. Pratt, widow of the late Lt. Cmdr. Malcolm L Pratt and mother of the late 1stLt. John L. Pratt; and commissioned on 18 September 1944, Cmdr. Robert H. Wanless in command.
After shakedown off Bermuda, Pratt sailed with Escort Division (CortDiv) 85 for the Panama Canal and southwest Pacific. Arriving at Manus, Admiralty Islands, on 7 January 1945, Pratt was escort commander for convoys running between New Guinea and the Philippines until 25 May. Between 25 May and 25 August she trained and escorted British and U.S. submarines in the Subic Bay area and patrolled the shipping lanes off the northwestern coast of Luzon.
Assigned to TG 70.4 Pratt sailed to Okinawa where she joined the Korean occupation force. On 5 September 1945, she sailed for Jinsen [Inchon] and after aiding in establishing a seaplane anchorage there, got underway with the seaplane tender Currituck (AV-7) and the escort vessel Rombach (DE-364), her sister ship, for Shanghai, China, whence she shifted to Taku, arriving on 28 September to plant seaplane moorings. On 21 November, she departed the Asian continent for Okinawa, thence to proceed to the United States for inactivation.
Arriving at San Pedro, Calif., on 16 December 1945, Pratt was decommissioned on 14 May 1946 and was berthed at Stockton, Calif., as a unit of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Transferred to the Mare Island Group, Vallejo, Calif., in 1959, she remained a unit of the Reserve Fleet until stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 15 March 1972. Ultimately, she was sold on 15 January 1973 and broken up for scrap.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
30 March 2021
