McKee II (Destroyer No. 87)
(DD‑87: dp. 1,060; l. 314'5"; b. 30'11"; dr. 9'2"; s. 35 k.; cpl. 100; a. 4 4", 2 1‑pdr., 12 21" tt.; cl. Wickes)
Hugh W. McKee, born in Lexington, Ky., was appointed to the Naval Academy 25 September 1861. Graduated in 1866, he had attained the rank of lieutenant by March 1870, and was serving in the Asiatic Squadron. He was mortally wounded 11 June 1871, while leading a company of bluejackets over the walls of a Korean fort on Kang‑wa Island close by the Inchon beaches during a punitive expedition. He died on board Colorado and was buried at his birthplace.
II
The second McKee (Destroyer No. 87) was laid down 29 October 1917 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, Calif.; launched 23 March 1918; sponsored by Mrs. J. Tynan: and commissioned 7 September 1918, Lt. Comdr. W. H. Lee in command.
Following a west coast shakedown, McKee sailed from Mare Island 13 September 1918, transited the Panama Canal the 27th, and reported for duty with Destroyer Flotilla 5 at New York 2 October. In this late phase of World War I, short coastal sailings preceded her departure from Hampton Roads 28 October as a convoy escort. Upon her arrival in the Azores 5 November she was assigned to a returning convoy and entered New York Harbor 2 December. Early in 1919 she steamed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for fleet exercises from 26 January to 4 April. A number of voyages from Key West, Fla., to Halifax, Nova Scotia, kept her crew well trained prior to her reporting Portsmouth, N.H., 13 December to be placed in reduced commission.
From July 1921, McKee based first at Newport, R.I., then at Charleston, S.C., and in the aftermath of the Washington Disarmament Conference proceeded to Philadelphia in April 1922. Decommissioning 16 June 1922, she was struck from the Navy list 7 January 1936 and sold to Boston Iron & Metal Co., Inc., Baltimore, Md., for scrapping.
