USS WICKES DD-75 Naval Cover 1937 HUTNICK Cachet
It was sent 7 Apr 1937. It was franked with stamp "Harding".
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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.
Contents [hide]
1 United States Navy service
1.1 World War I
1.2 1918–22
1.3 1923–40
2 Transfer to Britain
2.1 As HMS Montgomery
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links
United States Navy service[edit]
Wickes was laid down on 26 June 1917 at Bath, Maine, by the Bath Iron Works. The ship was launched on 25 June 1918; sponsored by Miss Ann Elizabeth Young Wickes, the daughter of Dr. Walter Wickes, a descendant of Lambert Wickes. The destroyer was commissioned on 31 July 1918, Lieutenant Commander John S. Barleon in command.
World War I[edit]
After an abbreviated shakedown, Wickes departed Boston on 5 August and arrived at New York City on 8 August. Later that day, she sailed for the British Isles, escorting a convoy of a dozen merchantmen. After shepherding her charges across the Atlantic, Wickes was detached from the convoy to make a brief stop at Queenstown, Ireland, on 19 August. Underway again the following day, the warship sailed for the Azores to pick up passengers and United States-bound mail at Ponta Delgada before continuing on to New York.
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 Pueblo and escorting a convoy of merchant vessels. At 2104, Wickes sighted an unidentified ship to port on a collision course. She immediately changed her course and switched on her lights. When the oncoming ship failed to give way, the destroyer ordered full speed astern and went to general quarters. At 2110, only six minutes after the initial sighting, the unidentified ship's bow smashed into Wickes port billboard. The stem of the stranger cut through the destroyer's keel and caused extensive damage forward. Fortunately, there were no personnel casualties; and the flood was contained by a key bulkhead which held fast. In this case of "hit and run" on the high seas, the assailant remained unknown, since she scraped the destroyer's port side and steamed off into the night. Stopping engines at 2112, Wickes crew took stock of the damage and put about for the New York Navy Yard, where she arrived at 0453 on 24 October.
While the ship was undergoing repairs there, the signing of the armistice on 11 November 1918 stilled the guns of World War I. President Woodrow Wilson sailed for Europe in the transport George Washington; and Wickes served as part of the escort screen for the President's ship, departing from New York on 4 December 1918, bound for Brest, France.
1918–22[edit]
Wickes subsequently cruised to northern European ports in late 1918-—calling at Hamburg and Stettin, Germany; and Harwich, England. During this European cruise, while mooring at Hamburg on 3 March 1919, the destroyer collided with the German merchantman Ljusne Elf. After repairs, the destroyer shifted to Brest in June and from there escorted George Washington as that transport carried President Wilson back home to the United States.
After celebrating the 4 July 1919 off the Atlantic coast, Wickes and her sisters sailed for the Pacific, transiting the Panama Canal on 24 July 1919 with the mass movement of the ships from Atlantic to Pacific. Later in that year, Commander William F. Halsey took command of the ship, after an overhaul at the Mare Island Navy Yard. Halsey, who would win fame in World War II, later stated in his memoirs that Wickes was "the best ship I ever commanded; she was also the smartest and the cleanest." As flagship for Destroyer Division 10, Wickes operated off the west coast into 1922, conducting the usual target practices and exercises. As a wave of peacetime austerity swept over the United States, the Navy felt the "pinch" of decreased expenditures and the widespread antimilitary sentiment which cropped up in the aftermath of World War I. Accordingly, Wickes was decommissioned and placed in reserve at San Diego, California, on 15 May 1922.
1923–40[edit]
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 Naval Reserve detachments from the 3d Naval District embarked. From 3 to 18 February 1931, the ship visited Tampa, Florida, for the Florida State Fair and Gasparilla Pirate Festival, before she shifted to Mobile, Alabama, to take part in Mardi Gras observances. In November, the busy destroyer visited Bridgeport, Connecticut, to participate in the Armistice Day observances on the 11th. In April 1932, two years after being recommissioned, Wickes reported for duty with Rotating Reserve Squadron 20 and subsequently shifted back to the Pacific.
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 Franklin Delano Roosevelt promptly directed that the Navy establish a "Neutrality Patrol" off the eastern seaboard, in the approaches to the Panama Canal and Guantanamo Bay, and at the two entrances to the Gulf of Mexico. To help patrol these stretches of sea, the Navy quickly reactivated 77 destroyers and light minelayers.