She served the United States Navy for nearly 30 years and was nicknamed “the Lucky O,” and she went on to become “the most decorated destroyer” of World War II. She was also built at Bath Iron Works and is best known for fighting the Japanese with a locker full of potatoes.

On March 3, 1941, a full nine months before the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor — drawing the United States into World War II — Bath Iron Works laid the keel for two ships on “the building ways.”

These sister-ships were of the new Fletcher class of naval destroyers and both were rapidly built side by side. They were 376 feet long with a 40-foot beam and a 2,100-ton displacement. One of these ships was eventually named the USS Nicholas, the other the USS O’Bannon.

On Feb. 19, 1942, the Nicholas was launched, followed by her sister-ship the O’Bannon on March 14. By June, both were commissioned at Boston and both were bound for the Pacific Theater of War.

“Just 20 weeks since [O’Bannon] first got underway,” she steamed into a campaign for the Solomon Islands, fighting to defend American Marines stationed on the Island of Guadalcanal.

By Nov. 13, 1942, the O’Bannon was assigned to an American naval task force commanded by Admiral William F. “Bull” Halsey, which included two battleships, 12 cruisers, 31 destroyers and one aircraft carrier. Halsey made the O’Bannon his flagship during the battle.

The Japanese Imperial Navy brought 61 warships, four battleships, 11 cruisers, 44 destroyers and two light aircraft carriers to the fight. The Japanese wanted to seize Guadalcanal, and they heavily outnumbered the American Navy.

The USS O’Bannon first engaged and sank the Japanese destroyer Akatsuki before joining in the “point blank attack” on Japan’s flagship, the Battleship Hiei.

“The U.S. Force was decimated at Guadalcanal” as 24 American warships were sunk, and most of the remaining fleet was heavily damaged. But the USS O’Bannon survived with only slight damage and earned her nickname, “the Lucky O.”

Then, “on the night of April 5th 1943,” the 275 officers and crewmen of the USS O’Bannon were “on patrol off the Solomon Islands” when O’Bannon “encountered the RO-34, a surfaced Japanese Submarine.”

O’Bannon turned “hard to port” to avoid collision with the submarine. Within seconds, the O’Bannon and the enemy submarine were closely alongside one another.

Men on the decks of both ships were unarmed, but the men of the O’Bannon were quick on their feet as they turned to a nearby “storage locker” where potatoes were stored. The men quickly bombarded the Japanese sailors with Maine-grown spuds.

Fearing that hand grenades were being tossed at them, the Japanese sailors quickly grabbed the spuds and threw them back at the O’Bannon. Meanwhile, O’Bannon’s bridge brought the destroyer about as the crew manned their deck guns.

The RO-34 submerged and escaped, but “three days later the USS O’Bannon joined the USS Strong” to finally sink the RO-34.

On Aug. 15, 1945, the O’Bannon, her sister-ship Nicholas and the Bath-built destroyer USS Taylor escorted the Battleship USS Missouri into Tokyo Bay, where the formal Japanese surrender took place upon Missouri’s deck, bringing the war in the Pacific to an end.

The USS O’Bannon served with little damage throughout the war and “lost no crew members” in 17 major naval engagements, earning her 17 battle stars and a presidential citation. This made the O’Bannon “the most decorated destroyer of World War Two.”

O’Bannon would go on to serve in three major naval engagements during the Korean conflict and three major engagements during the Vietnamese war; “over 4,000 men eventually served on the O’Bannon.”

In the summer of 1964, the O’Bannon became a movie star when she appeared in the film “In Harm’s Way” with John Wayne. Two years later, along with the USS Guam, the O’Bannon assisted with “recovery operations” for the Gemini 11 space mission in the Atlantic Ocean.

O’Bannon’s sister-ship Nicholas also survived the war in the Pacific to great acclaim and earned 16 battle stars in World War II, five during the Korean conflict and another nine battle stars during the Vietnam War.

Bath Iron Works built approximately “31 Fletcher Class Destroyers during World War Two … 11 Bath-Built ships were lost.” Many of these ships “were assigned to Destroyer Squadron 21, the most decorated squadron of the war.”

In January 1970, despite an all-out effort by Bath locals to preserve the O’Bannon as a museum ship, both the USS Nicholas and the USS O’Bannon were decommissioned and sold for scrap.

Today, though the USS O’Bannon is gone, her amazing history and storied legend still exists — to be rediscovered — in the many chapters of our Stories from Maine.

Historian Lori-Suzanne Dell has authored five books on Maine history and administers the popular “Stories From Maine” page on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.