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Following shakedown in the waters around Bermuda, for the next ten months BUCKLEY and her mostly USNR crew operated along the Eastern seaboard and as far south as the Florida Keys and Guantanamo, as training ship for prospective officers and nucleus crews of other destroyer escorts. Initially based out of Norfolk and later out of SCTC Miami, BUCKLEY's crew honed their own skills while teaching others. DE's were built and designed for one main purpose: defensive or offensive warfare against submarines. One of the offensive tactical methods was through hunter-killer groups, where usually 4 or 5 DE's would join an escort carrier to search and destroy submarines.
On April 22, 1944, USS BUCKLEY joined Hunter-Killer (HUK) Task Group 21.11, centered on the escort carrier, USS BLOCK ISLAND (CVE-21) for a sweep of the North Atlantic and Mediterranean convoy routes. As the senior enlisted gunnery NCO on BUCKLEY, GMC Hendrickson played a key role during arguably the single-most daring "submarine kill" of the war, when USS BUCKLEY rammed and sank the German submarine U-66 in the Atlantic sea-lanes off North Africa on the night of May 5-6, 1944. Since commissioning in 1940, U-66 had been a scourge to the vital trans-Atlantic supply lines to the war effort in Europe and North Africa. She was the 7th most successful U-Boat in WW2 in terms of shipping tonnage sunk by her torpedoes- 33 merchant vessels and 2 motor torpedo boats damaged.
The order, "Stand by to ram", is rarely heard on a US Navy ship - and the order LCDR Maxwell gave after USS BUCKLEY rammed U-66 and sat perched on the sub's forecastle, "Stand by to repel boarders", just before German sailors clambered onto BUCKLEY, had not been heard since the days of Commodore Matthew Perry 100 years earlier.
USS BUCKLEY remained on scene for 3 hours after sinking U-66 and rescued 36 survivors, including 4 officers. Based on the firepower hitting them, the German POWs were surprised to learn later that they had been attacked by a destroyer escort and not a light cruiser.
At midnight on May 7, BUCKLEY was detached from HUK TG 21.11 and set out for the Boston Navy Yard for repairs- her bow bent from ramming U-66 and with only her port screw operable to give 13 knots, the starboard shaft sheared off when the sub struck BUCKLEY in the final moments before sinking.
USS BUCKLEY'S C.O., LCDR Abel was awarded the Navy Cross for his combat action against U-66. In addition to the Navy Unit Commendation awarded BUCKLEY, her crewmen were authorized to wear a battle star on the European- African Theater ribbon. Some high ranking Navy officers of the day considered the battle between USS BUCKLEY and U-66 to be the "most exciting" submarine kill of World War II.
