USS Welborn C. Wood
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History | |
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Name | Welborn C. Wood |
Namesake | Welborn C. Wood |
Builder | Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company |
Laid down | 24 September 1918 |
Launched | 6 March 1920 |
Commissioned | 14 January 1921 |
Decommissioned | 8 August 1922 |
Stricken | 1 October 1930 |
Fate | Transferred to the US Coast Guard |
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Name | USCGD Wood |
Commissioned | 15 April 1931 |
Decommissioned | 21 May 1934 |
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Commissioned | 4 September 1939 |
Decommissioned | 9 September 1940 |
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Name | HMS Chesterfield |
Commissioned | 9 September 1940 |
Decommissioned | 17 January 1945 |
Identification | Pennant number: I28 |
Fate | Scrapped, 1948 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Clemson-class destroyer |
Displacement | 1,215 tons |
Length | 314 ft 4+1⁄2 in (95.82 m) |
Beam | 30 ft 11+1⁄2 in (9.436 m) |
Draft | 9 ft 4 in (2.84 m) |
Propulsion | geared turbines |
Speed | 35 kn (65 km/h) |
Complement | 111 officers and enlisted |
Armament |
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USS Welborn C. Wood (DD-195) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She served with the United States Coast Guard as USCGD Wood. She was later transferred to the Royal Navy as HMS Chesterfield.
Namesake
Welborn Cicero Wood was born on 15 January 1876 in Georgia. He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy on 6 September 1895. He served as a midshipman on the battleship USS Texas during the Spanish–American War, before graduating with the class of 1899. He later joined USS Oregon on the Asiatic Squadron to serve part of the two years required by law before commissioning.
Subsequently, he was given command of the gunboat USS Urdaneta, then operating in the Philippines during the Philippine–American War. Naval Cadet Wood was killed in action on 17 September 1899, when his ship ran aground in the Orani River, near Manila, and was overwhelmed by insurgent troops who enfiladed the gunboat with a withering fire from the shoreline.
As USS Welborn C. Wood
Welborn C. Wood was
Welborn C. Wood operated off the eastern seaboard with the
As USCGD Wood
During the 1920s Prohibition gave rise to smuggling of illicit liquor into the United States. In an attempt to deal with this problem, 25 older destroyers were transferred by the Navy to the Treasury Department for service with the Coast Guard to try to enforce a complete Prohibition. Some began to show signs of wear and tear after the often arduous pace of operations on the Rum Patrol and required replacement. Accordingly, five of the newer "flush deck" destroyers were transferred to the Treasury Department in 1930 and 1931.
Welborn C. Wood was transferred to the Coast Guard on 1 October 1930 and was simultaneously struck from the Navy list. Reconditioned and commissioned, on 15 April 1931, at Philadelphia, the destroyer was renumbered CG-19. She arrived at her permanent station, New London, Connecticut, a week later to operate on the Rum Patrol. Shifting south to Florida waters for target practice soon thereafter, she returned to New London upon the conclusion of her exercises and operated out of that port into the autumn of 1932.
After another period of routine patrols off the eastern seaboard, she operated with the Navy in Cuban waters, off Nueva Gerona, in September and October 1933, interrupting her scheduled target practices. Released from this duty on 6 November, she sailed north for New York that day, followed by a brief period in New London. The repeal of Prohibition in late 1933 obviated the need for the destroyer's law enforcement duty, and Welborn C. Wood was decommissioned once more at Philadelphia on 21 May 1934.
While the warship lay in reserve, she was reinstated on the Navy list with many of her sisters in Philadelphia's reserve basin as the world situation slowly worsened. On 1 September 1939, German forces invaded Poland, triggering treaty obligations for France and the UK and hence a
President
On 4 September 1939, Welborn C. Wood was recommissioned at Philadelphia. She was fitted out for sea and soon sailed to join the Neutrality Patrol. The destroyer conducted these operations interspersed with accelerated training evolutions off the eastern seaboard and into the Caribbean and gulf regions.
British destroyer forces had suffered heavily since the outbreak of war and urgently needed reinforcement. Accordingly, British Prime Minister
As of 2005, no other U.S. Navy ship has been named USS Welborn C. Wood.
As HMS Chesterfield
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/HMS_CHESTERFIELD%2C_15_November_1942._FL3213.jpg/220px-HMS_CHESTERFIELD%2C_15_November_1942._FL3213.jpg)
Welborn C. Wood became one of the first of the 50 over-age destroyers to be transferred to the British government in return for 99-year leases on base sites in the Western Hemisphere as part of the
The destroyer was renamed HMS Chesterfield (I28). During fitting out, she twice rammed
From 1941 to 1943, Chesterfield escorted convoys in the North Atlantic. Chesterfield was assigned to Escort Group B-7 of the
Allocated to the 5th Western Approaches Command for duty as a target vessel for aircraft, she remained engaged in this significant, but unglamorous, duty through 1944. Subsequently placed in reserve at Grangemouth, Firth of Forth, on 17 January 1945 Chesterfield was eventually broken up for scrap in 1948.
Notes
References
- Lenton, H.T. & Colledge J.J. (1968). British and Dominion Warships of World War II. Doubleday and Company.
- Rohwer, J. & Hummelchen, G. (1992). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-105-X.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
- Photo gallery at navsource.org