World War II

Shortly before 0800 on 7 December 1941, planes from six Japanese aircraft carriers swept down upon the fleet units present at Pearl Harbor, in a surprise attack. Wasmuth (among the ships in port that Sunday) lay at buoys D-7 and D-7S inboard in a nest with three sister ships of Mine Division (MineDiv) 4: Trever, Zane, and Perry, at the mouth of Pearl Harbor's Middle Loch and just off Pearl City.

Wasmuth went to general quarters at once and Lt. (jg.) J. R. Grey (in the absence of both the commander and executive officer) assumed command of the ship. Within three minutes, her gunners had all of the .50-caliber Browning machine guns ready for action while the ship prepared to get underway. Inside the nest, however, the high-speed minesweeper could only bring her aftermost machine guns to bear against the approaching planes.

Shortly after 0900, about midway through horizontal bomber attacks (carried out by Nakajima B5N bombers), Aichi D3A's (later code-named "Vals") began glide- and dive-bombing attacks on the ships and shore installations, kicking off the fourth phase of the raid. Those planes, coming from a westerly direction, were targets for the eager gunners in the minesweepers and minelayers moored in Middle Loch. Wasmuth's gunners (who expended 6,000 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition in the action) opened fire whenever the planes came within range. One man, Seaman 1st Class James P. Hannon, was given credit for shooting down an Aichi that crashed in a portion of Pearl Harbor on Waipio Peninsula, near Middle Loch just North of Mamala Bay in South Central Oahu. The ship damaged several other planes as they came by.

Lt Cmdr. L. M. LeHardy (Zane's commanding officer and the senior officer present of MineDiv 4) ordered the ships to get underway, Trever leading the pack at 0932. Five minutes later, Lt. J. W. Leverton, Wasmuth's executive officer, arrived as his ship edged out of Middle Loch, and took command, relieving Lt. (jg.) Grey who had fought the ship since the outset of the attack. Shortly thereafter, Trever's commander reported on board too, since his own ship was steaming down the channel without him. Proceeding out of her harbor herself soon thereafter, Wasmuth took up patrols off the channel entrance. Meanwhile, while the attack itself had ceased, jittery sailors, marines, and soldiers were not so sure. At sea, the forces searching for the retiring Japanese suspected the presence of enemy submarines, real or otherwise. At 1023, Wasmuth dropped one depth charge "on suspicious water" but came up with only a negative result. At 1036, the high-speed minesweeper dropped another depth charge, but only achieved the same result as the first attack - nothing. Although it brought up "large quantities of oil" there was no wreckage. Later that afternoon, Wasmuth and Zane swept the Pearl Harbor entrance channel before the former anchored at the coal docks when her sweep wire parted. After she retrieved the sweep gear, she headed back to the open sea, where her commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. J. L. Wilfong, reported aboard. Trever's commanding officer, Lt. Comdr. D. M. Agnew, rejoined his own ship at 1635. MineDiv 4 soon resumed its patrol operations.

Wasmuth operated in the Hawaiian chain between Johnston Island and Pearl Harbor into the spring of 1942. She departed Pearl Harbor on 31 May 1942, and escorted Convoy 4111 to San Francisco, reaching her destination on 10 June. Departing there on the last day of July, Wasmuth returned to Pearl Harbor with Convoy 2113, arriving on 12 August.

Departing Pearl Harbor on 14 August, Wasmuth left Hawaii in her wake for the last time, bound for the Aleutian Islands. Reaching Kodiak, Alaska, on 20 August, the high-speed minesweeper spent the remainder of her career in this region as part of Task Force 8, performing screen and escort duties for the supply ships necessary to bear the "beans, bullets, and black oil" to that theater. In the course of her operations that autumn and winter, the ship visited such picturesquely named places as Women's Bay, Dutch Harbor, Nome, and Kodiak.

Fate

Two days after Christmas of 1942, Wasmuth was escorting a convoy through a heavy Alaskan storm when two depth charges were wrenched from their tracks by the pounding sea, fell over the side, and exploded beneath the ship's fantail. The blasts carried away part of the ship's stern and the ship began to founder; in the gale, the pumps could not make headway against the inexorably rising water below. Despite the heavy sea, Ramapo came alongside the foundering Wasmuth. For three and a half hours, the tanker remained with the sinking high-speed minesweeper, battling the waves while successfully transferring her crew and two passengers. After completing that rescue, Ramapo pulled away; Wasmuth eventually sank early on 29 December 1942. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 3 September 1943.