USS MANLEY DD-74

USS MANLEY DD-74 Ship History

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Published 1981)

The second Manley (Destroyer No. 74) was laid down 22 August 1916 by the Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; launched 23 August 1917; sponsored by Miss Dorothy S. Sewall; and commissioned 15 October 1917, Comdr. Robert L. Berry in command. She was redesignated DD-74 17 July 1920.

After fitting out in Boston Navy Yard, Manley sailed 25 November 1917 to Join the convoy escort and patrol forces based at Queenstown, Ireland. On the morning of 19 March 1918, while Manley escorted a convoy, a violent explosion, caused by the accidental detonation of her depth charges practically destroyed her stern, killing her executive officer, Lt. Comdr. Richard M. Elliott, Jr., and 33 enlisted men. Fragments pierced two 50-gallon drums of gasoline and two tanks containing 100 gallons of alcohol. The leaking fluids caught fire as they ran along the deck and enveloped the ship in flames which were not extinguished until late that night.

Then HMS Tamarack edged up to the shattered destroyer and unsuccessfully tried to put a tow line on board. Manley remained adrift until British tugs BIazer and Cartmel took her in tow after daylight 20 March. She reached Queenstown at dusk the following day with more than 70 feet of her hull awash or completely under water.

Manley completed repairs in Liverpool and sailed on 22 December 1918 for operations along the eastern seaboard of the United States. She got underway 11 April 1919 to join U.S. Naval Forces in the Adriatic transporting passengers, carrying mail, and performing diplomatic missions. In June 1919 she began carrying mail and members of the U.S. Food Commission among Turkish ports in the Black Sea. The destroyer returned from the Mediterranean to New York 1 August 1919 and decommissioned at Philadelphia 14 June 1922.

The destroyer recommissioned 1 May 1930 for service as an experimental torpedo-firing ship at Newport, R I. On 19 August 1930 she Joined the Scouting Fleet in battle practice along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean. She performed similar duty on the coast of California out of San Diego during 1932. She returned to the Atlantic early in 1933 for operations which continued until she sailed for the Canal Zone 10 September 1935 and joined the Special Service Squadron that patrolled the Caribbean.

Manley sailed for Norfolk 1 February 1937 to join DesRon 10 in training midshipmen. On 26 October 1937 she sailed from Boston with Claxton (DD-140) to serve with Squadron 40-T in protecting American interests in the Mediterranean during the Spanish Civil War. She operated principally from Villefranche, Naples, Algiers, and Tangiers until she departed Gibraltar 29 October 1938, arriving Norfolk 11 November 1938. Reclassified a miscellaneous auxiliary 28 November, she was redesignated AG-28.

Manley was outfitted as a troop transport in the New York Navy Yard by 7 February 1939. Her first marine landing force drill was carried out on 21 February when she landed marines in Target Bay, Culebra Island in the first of many landing exercises on the Virginia and North Carolina beaches and in the Caribbean that would prove of great benefit to the United States in the vast oversea conflict then just over the horizon. Manley briefly visited the California Beast in the spring of 1940 for marine landing force drills off Coronado Roads. Back in the Atlantic, Manley was officially designated the Navy’s first high-speed transport 2 August 1940 when she became APD-1. At dusk 11 April 1942, she picked up 290 survivors from the torpedoed merchant passenger steamer SS Ulysses and landed them at Charleston the following day. On 13 July 1942 Manley transited the Panama Canal for duty with the Pacific Fleet. Touching the Society and Fiji Islands, she reached Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides 14 August, and loaded special cargo for Guadalcanal, invaded only 1 week earlier.