10/12/2026
Eighty-three years ago today, the Cannon Class destroyer es**rt, USS McANN, was placed in commission on 11 October 1943. She remembered Donald Roy McAnn, who was born on 23 June 1911, in Rochester, New York. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy on 16 August 1932. During the early months of World War II, he served aboard USS ENTERPRISE (CV 6) as a gunner’s mate first class.
On 26 October 1942, U.S. carrier task forces fought a numerically superior Japanese force in the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands. During the fierce air battle McAnn took valuable photographs from an exposed position on the forward port fifty caliber gun mount. In addition, he rendered vital assistance to the gun crew and displayed outstanding courage without regard for his own safety. While relieving one of the gunners, he was struck by an exploding bomb fragment and fatally wounded. Donald Roy McAnn was buried at sea. For his unstinting bravery in the face of hostile action, McAnn was awarded the Navy Cross posthumously.
He was remembered by USS McAnn (DE 179), a destroyer es**rt that was laid down by Federal Shipbuilding Co., Newark, NJ, on 17 May 1943. McANN was launched on 5 September 1943. The ship was sponsored by Mrs. Ethel Marie McAnn and was commissioned at New York on 11 October 1943, with Cdr. Charles F. Hooper in command.
After shakedown off Bermuda, McAnn operated along the east coast from Newport, RI, to Charleston, SC, until 19 December 1943, when she departed Norfolk on a convoy es**rt run to the Canal Zone. She reached Coco Solo on 26 December, then sailed on the 31st for duty out of Key West. Arriving there on 3 January 1944, she spent the next several weeks with the Fleet Sound School training Sailors on antisubmarine warfare techniques.
Assigned to Es**rt Division 24, McAnn sailed for the Caribbean on 29 February. Steaming via Trinidad, she joined convoy TJ 25 on 5 March, and screened the ships to Recife, Brazil. On the 15th, she rescued the entire crew of 10 men from a B 17, which had splashed off the Brazilian coast the day before. McAnn arrived Recife on 16 March.
Between 2 and 12 April 1944, McAnn cruised to Trinidad in the screen of convoy JT 27. During the next three months, she completed three additional es**rt runs between the Caribbean and Brazil. She completed this duty on 12 July, and 4 days later departed Recife as screen for the light cruiser, USS MEMPHIS (CL 13). She cruised the South Atlantic in search of German submarines and surface raiders until returning to Recife 30 July.
McAnn underwent an upkeep, and then steamed to Natal, arriving on 10 August. She decommissioned there on 15 August, and was transferred, under lend lease, to Brazil on the same date. She was commissioned in the Brazilian Navy on 16 August as BAURU (Be-4).
She served on loan with Brazilian Navy until 30 June 1953, when she was retransferred to Brazil, permanently, under the Mutual Defense Assistance Pact. McAnn continued to serve as BAURU until 17 September 1981, when she was decommissioned from the Brazilian Navy. Subsequently, she was preserved as a floating memorial by the Brazilian Navy at the "Centro Cultural da Marinha" in Rio de Janeiro, and remains on display to this day.
