Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "USS Ward and the First Shots of Pearl Harbor" video.

Thanks for remembering this important date. That fact the USS Ward didn't make it through the war deprived us of one of the most historic ships of WWII, the ship that fired the first shot before the war had even officially started.
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@crazybrit-nasafan The war against the Japanese by the US had not been in progress before the Ward fired those shots. We had been participating in neutrality patrols and lost the USS Reuben James, another 4 piper, to a German sub, but we weren't in the war. Given that the Ward sank an enemy combatant in US waters a few hours before the aerial attack began, it qualifies as the first shots for the US. Hard to tell if the damage inflicted on the Betty by the Ward's gunners caused the plane to waver off course and hit the ship or if was a deliberate move on the part of the pilot. According to the after action report filed later, the Betty was shedding part of her starboard wing before crashing into the vessel.
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@JohnRodriguesPhotographer Possibly, but I suspect there would have been a sufficient outcry from the American people to cause the Ward to be set aside from scrapping, at least for a bit. If that would have led to preservation is another matter. She was a post WWI member of her class and had been lightly used in the interwar period. She had never been damaged in battle until that fatal day in 1944. Going against her was her APD conversion, so she looked completely different than the Ward of December 7, 1941. Unfortunately, we will never know what might have happened to her.
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