USS Wickes (DD-75)
 Wickes in the early 1920s
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USS Wickes |
| Namesake | Lambert Wickes |
| Builder | Bath Iron Works |
| Laid down | 26 June 1917 |
| Launched | 25 June 1918 |
| Commissioned | 31 July 1918 |
| Decommissioned | 15 May 1922 |
| Recommissioned | 26 April 1930 |
| Decommissioned | 6 April 1937 |
| Recommissioned | 30 September 1939 |
| Stricken | 8 January 1941 |
| Fate | Transferred to Royal Navy 23 October 1940 |
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | HMS Montgomery |
| Commissioned | 23 October 1940 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1945 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Wickes-class destroyer |
| Displacement | 1,247 tons |
| Length | 314 ft 4+1⁄2 in (95.822 m) |
| Beam | 30 ft 11+1⁄4 in (9.430 m) |
| Draft | 9 ft (2.7 m) |
| Complement | 100 officers and enlisted |
| Armament |
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The first USS Wickes (DD-75) was the lead ship of her class of destroyers in the United States Navy during World War I, later transferred to the Royal Navy as HMS Montgomery. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Montgomery.
Wickes was
World War I
After an abbreviated shakedown, Wickes departed
Wickes subsequently escorted convoys off the northeast coast of the United States. She departed New York on 7 October, bound for Nova Scotia; but, during the voyage north, her crew was hit by influenza. Soon after the ship's arrival at Halifax, 30 men—including the commanding officer—were hospitalized ashore.
Soon the outbreak of flu in Wickes abated, but bad luck seemed to dog the destroyer. She departed New York at 1748 on 23 October, screening ahead of the armored cruiser
While the ship was undergoing repairs there, the signing of the
1918–22
Wickes subsequently cruised to northern European ports in late 1918-—calling at
After celebrating the
1923–40
The destroyer lay out of commission for eight years. Recommissioned on 26 April 1930, Wickes shifted to the Atlantic and was based at New York. She operated off the eastern seaboard, making training cruises with
From 1933 to 1937, Wickes operated out of San Diego, commanded by Lt. Comdr. Ralph U. Hyde, ('17), with Lt. Milton E. Miles as Exec. Decommissioned on 6 April 1937, the destroyer remained in reserve only a short time because of the increase of tension in Europe and the Far East. Fighting broke out in Poland on 1 September 1939 as German forces invaded that country and thus triggered British and French assistance to Poland. World War II was on.
President
Wickes was recommissioned on 30 September 1939. Over the ensuing month, the destroyer was fitted out while moored at the destroyer base alongside
Wickes and her sister ships patrolled alternately in the Yucatán Channel between the east coast of Cuba and the Yucatán Peninsula and in the passage between Florida and the west coast of Cuba. They shadowed belligerent merchantmen and warships of the British and Commonwealth navies searching for German freighters or passenger ships caught in or near American coastal waters by the outbreak of war.
On her first patrol, Wickes spotted a cruiser—possibly
Wickes returned to Key West on 30 December but enjoyed barely enough time to refuel and provision before she got underway again on 2 January 1940. She maintained a patrol off the Yucatán Peninsula for a week before returning to Key West on 9 January. Shifting to Guantánamo Bay soon thereafter, Wickes exercised with larger units of the
After leaving Puerto Cabello, Wickes and her division mates visited
In late February, Wickes again patrolled the
From late April through mid-June, Wickes visited San Juan, Puerto Rico, and St. Thomas. She departed from the latter port on 1 July to join the battleships Texas, Arkansas, and New York that afternoon and conducted simulated torpedo attacks upon them at night. Wickes then operated out of San Juan for the remainder of the month.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the situation facing the British had materially worsened. The devastating German blitzkrieg had carried the Low Countries before it and knocked France out of the war. British destroyer forces had suffered terribly in the ill-fated Norwegian campaign and in the evacuation from Dunkirk. Moreover, German U-boats had taken their toll in their operations against British convoys. With Italy's entry into the war in the summer of 1940, the British were faced with another long lifeline to defend in the Mediterranean.
Transfer to Britain
Prime Minister
Accordingly, 50 ships were picked for transfer— Wickes among them. After her last Caribbean tour, the destroyer returned to Key West on 24 July. She shifted to Galveston, Texas, on 27 July for an overhaul at Todd's Drydock Company and remained there through August.
Wickes departed Galveston in company with the destroyer
As part of the fifth group of destroyers transferred to the British and Canadians, Wickes was visited by Prime Minister
As HMS Montgomery
She was commissioned simultaneously on 23 January under the White Ensign as HMS Montgomery (G95).
The destroyer underwent further fitting out and familiarisation before departing Canadian waters on 1 November, bound for the British Isles. En route, Montgomery and the other of her sister ships in company swept through the scene of the one-sided naval engagement between the
Shifting to Plymouth, England, a week later, Montgomery was allocated to the Western Approaches command and based at Liverpool. During the course of one of her early patrols, Montgomery rescued 39 survivors from the motor tanker Scottish Standard which had been torpedoed and sunk by the U-96 on 21 February 1941. Disembarking the rescued mariners on 24 February, Montgomery resumed her Western Approaches patrols soon thereafter.
The flush-decker underwent repairs at Barrow-in-Furness from April to September and was later assigned to the 4th Escort Group. Montgomery was modified for trade convoy escort service by removal of three of the original 4-inch/50-caliber guns and one of the triple torpedo tube mounts to reduce topside weight for additional depth charge stowage and installation of hedgehog.[1] Based now at Greenock, the destroyer operated between the British Isles and Canadian ports through the end of 1941. On 13 January 1942, the Panamanian-registered steamer SS Friar Rock was torpedoed and sunk by U-130 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Four days later, Montgomery picked up seven survivors from that ship.
In February 1942, Montgomery came under the aegis of the
The destroyer remained with the Western Local Escort Force into late 1943, operating out of Halifax. On 12 December 1943, she assisted the Bowater-Lloyd Paper Co. barge Spruce Lake and, on 27 December, departed Halifax for the British Isles, carrying the surviving crew members from the torpedoed British destroyer HMS Hurricane which had been sunk by U-415 on 24 December.
Arriving in England soon thereafter, Montgomery was placed in reserve in the River Tyne on 23 February 1944. Removed from the "effective list"—the British equivalent of the United States Navy's "Navy List" – the veteran flush-decker was subsequently broken up for scrap in the spring of 1945 shortly before the end of the war in Europe.
Notes
- ^ Lenton & Colledge (1968) p.91
References
- Lenton, H.T. and Colledge J.J. (1968). British and Dominion Warships of World War II. Doubleday and Company.
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
- Photos Archived 24 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- NavSource Photos
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