USS Gregory (DD-82)
USS Gregory (DD-82), circa in 1919
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History | |
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United States | |
Name | USS Gregory |
Builder | Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts |
Laid down | 25 August 1917 |
Launched | 27 January 1918 |
Commissioned | 1 June 1918 |
Decommissioned | 7 July 1922 |
Reclassified | High-speed transport, APD-3, 2 August 1940 |
Recommissioned | 4 November 1940 |
Stricken | 2 October 1942 |
Fate | Sunk 5 September 1942 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Wickes-class destroyer |
Displacement | 1,191 tons |
Length | 314 ft 4 in (95.81 m) |
Beam | 30 ft 11 in (9.42 m) |
Draft | 9 ft 2 in (2.79 m) |
Speed | 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
Complement | 141 officers and enlisted |
Armament | 4 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes |
USS Gregory (DD-82/APD-3) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War I and, as APD-3 World War II. She was named for Admiral Francis Gregory USN (1780–1866). She was converted into a high-speed transport during World War II and was sunk by Japanese warships.
Construction and commissioning
Gregory was laid down by the
Service history
World War I
Joining a
Inter-War period
After brief tours in reserve at
As war broke again over Europe, threatening to involve the United States, Gregory and three other four-stackers were taken out of mothballs for conversion to high-speed transports. The destroyers were stripped of virtually all their armament to make room for boats, while other important modifications were made for troops and cargo (such as removing two forward boiler rooms and their stacks). Gregory recommissioned 4 November 1940 as APD-3 and joined Little, Colhoun, and McKean to form Transport Division 12 (TransDiv 12). Gregory and her sister APDs trained along the East Coast for the following year perfecting landing techniques with various Marine divisions. None of these ships survived through the Pacific war, as all but McKean were lost during the Solomon Islands campaign.
World War II
On 27 January 1942 she departed Charleston for
Departing
On 4 September, Gregory and Little were returning to their anchorage at
A Navy pilot had also seen the gunfire and, assuming it came from a Japanese submarine, dropped a string of five flares almost on top of the two APDs. Gregory and Little, silhouetted against the blackness, were spotted immediately by the Japanese destroyers, which opened fire at 01:00. Gregory brought all her guns to bear but was overmatched and less than 3 minutes after the flares had been dropped was dead in the water and beginning to sink. Two boilers had burst and her decks were a mass of flames. Her skipper,
At 01:23, with all of Gregory's and most of Little's crew in the water, the Japanese ships began shelling again—aiming not at the crippled ships but at their helpless crews in the water. Gregory sank stern first some 40 minutes after the firing had begun, and was followed two hours later by Little.
Gregory's name was struck from the Navy List 2 October 1942.
Awards
Gregory received two
References
- ^ "Roll of Honour". maritimequest.com. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ Wigo, Bruce. "The story of Charles Jackson French" (PDF). ISHOF.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 December 2015. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links