USS WARRINGTON DD-30

USS WARRINGTON DD-30 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, January 2017

The first Warrington (Destroyer No. 30) was laid down on 21 June 1909 at Philadelphia, Pa., by the William Cramp & Sons Ship & Engine Building Co.; launched on 18 June 1910; sponsored by Mrs. Richard Hatton; and commissioned on 20 March 1911, Lt. Walter M. Hunt in command.

After fitting out at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Warrington moved on 5 August, to the Torpedo Station at Newport, R.I., where she loaded torpedoes in preparation for training with the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet. During most of the fall and early winter, the warship conducted battle drills and practice torpedo firings with the submarines and destroyers of the torpedo fleet. She also joined the cruisers and battleships of the Atlantic Fleet for training in broader combat maneuvers. Those training evolutions took her as far north as Cape Cod, Mass., and as far south as Cuba.

On 27 December 1911, the destroyer departed Charleston, S.C., in company with the ships of Destroyer Divisions 8 and 9, bound for Hampton Roads. At about 1240 the following morning, the two divisions of destroyers reached the vicinity of the Virginia capes. Suddenly, an unidentified schooner knifed her way through the darkness and mist, struck Warrington aft, and sliced off about 30 feet of her stern. The collision deprived her of all propulsion and forced her to anchor at sea some 17 miles off Cape Hatteras. Sterett (Destroyer No. 27) responded to her distress call first, but, soon, Walke (Destroyer No. 34) and Perkins (Destroyer No. 26) joined the vigil. The three ships struggled through the morning and forenoon watches to pass a towline to their stricken sister, but it was not until the revenue cutter Onondaga arrived at 1:00 p.m., that the latter ship succeeded in taking Warrington in tow. The revenue cutter towed her to the Norfolk Navy Yard where she was placed in reserve.

Returned to full commission on 2 December 1912 upon completion of her repairs, Warrington resumed operations with the torpedo forces assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, by then designated the Atlantic Torpedo Flotilla. For a little over four years, she operated in the eastern coastal waters of the U.S., participating in various gunnery drills and torpedo-firing practices with the torpedo flotilla as well as in fleet maneuvers and battle problems with the assembled Atlantic Fleet. During part of that interlude, the destroyer was based at Newport and worked out of Boston during the remainder. She ran aground on 20 May 1916 at Rockport, Mass., prompting a board of investigation ordered by the Commander, Destroyer Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet.

When the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917, Warrington began patrols off Newport to protect the harbor from German submarines. On 7 May, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations organized destroyers fitting out for distance service into designated divisions.

Warrington was assigned to Division Five along with Patterson (Destroyer No. 36), Paulding Destroyer No. 22), Trippe (Destroyer No. 33), Jenkins (Destroyer No. 42), and Drayton (Destroyer No. 23). This division was ordered to depart for distant service on 21 May. After six weeks of security patrols and preparations, the division stood out of Boston on the 21st, bound for Europe.

After a stop at Newfoundland en route, Warrington arrived at Queenstown [Cobh], on the southern coast of Ireland, on 1 June 1917. There, she began six months of service patrolling the southern approaches to the British ports on the Irish Sea and escorting convoys on the final leg of their voyage across the Atlantic to the British Isles.

Shortly after the initiation of her patrolling duties she rescued 16 survivors from the British Q-ship HMS Zylpha that had been torpedoed by U-82 (Kapitänleutnant Hans Adam, commanding) on 11 June 1917. A month later on 13 July, Warrington sighted an enemy submarine about four miles distant while patrolling south of Ireland. The U-boat submerged and the destroyer dropped a depth charge over a large oil slick and later struck a submerged object that lifted the stern of the ship, and then dropped two additional depth charges. The contact was later classified as “possibly slightly damaging” the enemy.

Ten days later, on 23 July 1917, Warrington collided with Davis (Destroyer No. 65) prompting the convening of a board of inquiry. On 30 August, Warrington, in company with the flagship Allen (Destroyer No. 66), Jenkins, Winslow (Destroyer No. 53), Patterson, Fanning (Destroyer No. 37), Wilkes (Destroyer No. 67) and Perkins (Destroyer No.26) rendezvoused with Convoy OQ-3 off Daunt Rock and escorted it through the Irish Sea and into Liverpool, England, and Cardiff, Wales, respectively. The destroyer continued to operate out of Queenstown until late November, when she received orders reassigning her to the Second Division, Patrol Forces, U.S. Naval Forces in France under Rear Adm. Henry B. Wilson.

Warrington reached Brest (Base No. 7), her new base of operations, on 29 November 1917, and resumed a grueling schedule of patrols and escort missions.

On 17 December 1917 she was underway in a gale when she received damage from heavy seas. After several months of patrolling and escort missions, Warrington went into the dockyard at Chatham, England, for a period of maintenance (6 April-13 April 1918).

On the morning of 31 May 1918, while escorting a convoy along the French coast, Warrington received a distress call from the troop transport President Lincoln which had been struck, earlier that morning, by three torpedoes from U-90 (Oberleutnant zur See Helmut Patzig) well out to sea. The destroyer immediately parted company with her coastal convoy and raced to rescue the sinking ship’s crew. She did not reach the area of the sinking until late that night, but succeeded in rescuing 443 survivors just after 11:00 p.m., Smith (Destroyer No. 17) took on all but one of the remaining 688 survivors of President Lincoln. That single exception, Lt. Edouard V. M. Izac, was rescued by U-90. On 1 June, during the voyage back to Brest, Warrington and Smith depth charged U-90. Lt. Izac, who later escaped from a German prison camp (for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor), reported that the charges shook the submarine severely. No evidence, however, of any success appeared on the surface, and the two destroyers, conscious of the importance of landing the rescued, abandoned the attack and continued on to Brest. They entered that port the following day, and disembarked the President Lincoln survivors. Afterward, on the 2nd, Warrington escorted the troop transports Leviathan (Id. No. 1326) and President Grant (Id. No. 3014) and Bridge (Supply Ship No.1) into Brest. Continuing her patrol and escort duties based from that French port, Warrington dropped depth charges on an oil slick on 7 June, with no apparent result. The destroyer encountered another oil slick on 11 July; again she dropped depth charges with a like negative result.

On 8 August 1918, Warrington, along with Tucker, Drayton, Winslow, Porter (Destroyer No. 59), and Fanning, rescued the surviving crew of the sunken French armored cruiser Dupetit Thouars, torpedoed the day before by U-62 (Kapitänleutnant Ernst Hashagen).

Cushing (Destroyer No. 55) and Nicholson (Destroyer No. 52). Stationed astern, Nicholson reported observing a submarine and began dropping depth charges. Warrington maneuvered and dropped additional depth charges within 800 yards of Nicholson’s barrage on what they observed as a wake. With a negative result, Warrington rejoined the convoy, while Nicholson remained in the vicinity.

On 16 September 1918, the Coast Guard derelict destroyer Seneca, based at Gibraltar, was escorting the inbound Convoy OM-99. At 11:30 a.m., the British collier Wellington was torpedoed by U-118 (Kapitänleutnant Herbert Stohwasser). Seneca proceeded at full speed to her assistance. At 11:31 a.m., U-118 was sighted a few hundred yards from Wellington. Seneca’s crew fired three shots at the submarine before it submerged, and the ship dropped depth charges and fired additional shots to keep her down. First Lt. Fletcher W. Brown, USCG, at once volunteered to assist Wellington’s master. Brown selected 19 volunteers to go over to Wellington, while 11 of the 42 men in Wellington’s crew also remained with the master. Brown was to be in charge, with the master to navigate her into Brest. At 12:35, Seneca left Wellington and rejoined the convoy. Warrington, escorting another convoy, detached and was on her way to assist Wellington, expecting to reach her by 5:00 p.m.

Arriving on board Wellington, Brown did everything possible to save the ship, but with the approach of a storm, Wellington was foundering. Some of those on board got away in a boat, leaving Brown and 18 of his men, and five of Wellington’s, stranded. Brown set the men to constructing life rafts. The bow, however, continued settling. The radio operator, in contact with Warrington, continued sending position reports. Rockets were fired from Wellington, and at 2:30 p.m. on the 17th, Warrington’s answering rockets were observed off the port bow. As Wellington listed rapidly, Brown gave the order to abandon ship. He continued signaling with a hand flashlight to Warrington about 1,200 yards away as the ship’s keel turned to a sixty degree angle. Then her boilers exploded and the vessel rose up for her final plunge. Brown jumped and swam clear, searching for something to which he could cling. After about three and a half hours in the water, Brown was picked up in an unconscious state. Eight others of Seneca’s crew were rescued, but one died shortly afterward. All told, 11 Seneca and five Wellington men perished. Among the eight other Seneca men pulled from the water was a seaman, James C. Osborn, who, supporting a shipmate, Coxswain Jorge A. Pedersen, had swum to a small life raft with the semiconscious man and held him between his feet. Several times in the hours that followed, they were washed off, but each time Osborn recovered his shipmate and hoisted him back on the pitching raft. Finally sighting Warrington, Osborn semaphored “I’m all right but he’s gone unless you come right away.” Both were recovered. After hovering in the area for six hours to ensure all survivors were brought aboard, Warrington departed and returned to Brest.

Late in October 1918, Germany discontinued unrestricted submarine warfare and, early in November, sued for peace. The armistice was concluded on 11 November 1918, but Warrington continued to serve in European waters until the spring of 1919. On 22 March, she stood out of Brest in the screen of a convoy of submarine chasers and tugs. After visiting the Azores, where she ran aground at Ponta del Gada on 10 April, she continued on to Bermuda. The warship then headed for Philadelphia. She reached the Delaware capes early in May 1919 and entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard for repairs.