On 30 May 1942, assigned to the air group of aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, replacing Torpedo Squadron 5 (VT-5) aboard Yorktown, VT-3 flew aboard as Yorktown departed Pearl Harbor to participate in the Battle of Midway. On 4 June 1942, Yorktown launched VT-3 and Bombing Squadron 3 (VB-3), covered by fighters from Fighting Squadron 3 (VF-3), to attack the Japanese aircraft carrier force in concert with a strike from aircraft carriers USS Enterprise and USS Hornet. Circumstances, however, dictated that only the Yorktown Air Group attacked as a unit, with VT-3 the last of the three American carrier torpedo squadrons to execute attacks against the Japanese carriers. Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 00 carrier fighters, however, overwhelmed the six-plane VF-3 covering element, and, in concert with heavy antiaircraft fire from the Japanese carriers and their screening ships, shot down ten of the twelve VT-3's Douglas TBD Devastatortorpedo bombers participating in the raid. Powers and his radio gunner, Seaman 2nd Class Joseph E. Mandeville, perished in the attack. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross.
The name Oswald A. Powers was assigned to DE–542 on 28 September 1943. Oswald A. Powers was laid down at the Boston Navy Yard at Boston, Massachusetts, on 18 November 1943 and launched on 17 December 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Ella M. Powers, mother of EnsignOswald A. Powers, the ship's namesake.
Construction of Oswald A. Powers was suspended before she could be completed. On 30 August 1945, she was assigned to the Atlantic Inactive Fleet in an incomplete state. On 7 January 1946, the contract for her construction was cancelled, and the incomplete ship was sold on 17 June 1947[1][2] to the John J. Duane Company of Quincy, Massachusetts, for scrapping.
^ abNavSource Online claims the sale date was 2 July 1946, and it is likely that this is a copy of an incorrect date from the ship's Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships entry before the latter was updated.
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