USS Borie (DD-215) was a in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first ship named for Ulysses S. Grant's Secretary of the Navy, Adolph E. Borie. She served in the Black Sea, the Asiatic Fleet and the Caribbean between the wars, and in the Battle of the Atlantic, the long campaign to protect Allied shipping from German U-boats during World War II. As part of the antisubmarine Hunter-killer Group unit Task Group 21.14, the crew earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its "extraordinary performance." Borie also earned distinction in her final battle with in November 1943, exchanging small arms fire with and ramming the surfaced U-boat, although she was crippled during the engagement and thereafter scuttled by friendly ships.
Construction
Borie was launched on 4 October 1919, by William Cramp & Sons; sponsored by Patty Borie, great-grandniece of Secretary Borie; and commissioned on 24 March 1920.
As a typical "flush decker," Borie was armed with four guns, one anti-aircraft (AA) gun, six .30 caliber (7.62 mm) machine guns, and twelve American 21 inch torpedo| torpedo tubes in four triple mounts, two mounts on each side. She was also fitted with depth charges and sonar for use against submarines. Her top speed was 35 knots (65 km/h).
Due to the heat in the tropics, it was customary for crewmen to sleep on the open decks of their ships, to be cooled by the breeze. The "flush deckers" often sported canvas awnings over their decks for this purpose.
Service history
In April 1920, Borie joined the United States Naval Detachment in Turkish Waters for service in the Black Sea. The following year, she reported to Destroyer Division 38, Asiatic Fleet, and for the next four years alternating between the Philippine Islands during the winter and Chefoo and Shanghai, China, during the summer. She then returned home and patrolled in the Caribbean until the spring of 1927, when she made a cruise to Europe. Borie remained with the Atlantic Fleet until 1929 when she began a three-year tour with the Asiatic Fleet.
In late October 1943, TG 21.14 went out for a fourth patrol, searching for a reported refueling concentration of U-boats around a Milchkuhe (Milk Cow) tanker sub in the North Atlantic. The report was the result of the triangulation of bearings taken with high frequency radio direction finders (HFDF, nicknamed "huff-duff").
Final battle with U-405
During her fourth patrol, Borie got a radar contact on shortly after 1943 hours, 31 October and closed in. The U-boat promptly crash-dived. Two depth charge attacks forced her back to the surface, but she again submerged; after a third attack, a large oil slick was observed. Though U-256 made it home badly damaged, Hutchins believed the target to be sunk, and signalled Card: "Scratch one pig boat; am searching for more."
Borie then got another radar contact about from the first, at 0153 hours on 1 November 1943, range and charged in to engage. At radar contact was lost, but sonar picked up the enemy sub at about the same time. Borie engaged (a Type VIIC U-boat) hours before dawn, at 49°00' N., 31°14' W.
thumb|300px|left|A sister ship of : Type VIIC, with her 88 mm deck gun removed, at the German navy memorial at [[Laboe.]]
Normally, in a surface engagement, the superior armament, speed and reserve buoyancy of the destroyer would have been decisive. But in this unusual case, the destroyer was unable to depress her 4-inch and 3-inch deck guns enough to hit the sub, while all of the submarine's machine guns could be brought to bear. One or two 4-inch gun crews attempted to fire, but their shells passed harmlessly over the target. Bories crew had a limited number of small arms, however, and the German deck mounts were completely open and had no protection. The executive officer had presented a virtually identical situation during drills on 27 October – a theoretical ramming by a U-boat on the port side – and as a result, after the ramming, Bories crew took immediate action without orders.
In the extended and bitter fighting that ensued, several German sailors were killed in desperate attempts to man the submarine's deck weapons. As each man emerged from the hatch and ran toward the guns, he was illuminated by Bories spotlight and met by a hail of gunfire. Bories crew engaged the enemy with whatever was at hand: Tommy guns, rifles, pistols, shotguns intended for riot control, and even a Very pistol. For the final battle, Borie crewmembers were awarded three Navy Cross medals, two Silver Star medals and one Legion of Merit medal.