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USS Bainbridge (DD-246)

Please see below for item level images and donated collections containing photographs of USS Bainbridge (DD-246)

USS Bainbridge (DD-246) was laid down on 27 May 1919 at Camden, N.J., by the New York Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 12 June 1920; sponsored by Miss Juliet Greene; and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 9 February 1921. 

USS Bainbridge (DD-246) missed the 1921 edition of the annual winter maneuvers, a part of which were held on the west coasts of Central and South America. Instead, she steamed north late in February to Newport, R.I., whence she carried out her shakedown training. After a short visit to New York, USS Bainbridge (DD-246)  arrived in Charleston on 13 October and remained there for the rest of 1921. USS Bainbridge (DD-246)  departed Charleston on 5 January 1922 and arrived in Guacanayabo Bay, Cuba, on the 12th. For nearly three months, she plied the waters of the West Indies executing elementary gunnery drills and carrying out engineering competitions that focused on improving fuel economy.

USS Bainbridge (DD-246) reached Constantinople, Turkey, on 22 October. She then operated with the United States Naval Detachment in Turkish waters until the spring of 1923 as one of the ships that helped Rear Admiral Bristol to maintain "an adequate reserve" at Constantinople. Returning to Constantinople from Smyrna, Turkey, the last stop on a circuit of such visits that also included the Greek ports of Athens, Mitylene, and Phaeleron Bay, on 16 December 1922. 

Repairs ended at the beginning of the new year, and USS Bainbridge (DD-246) stood out of New York on 3 January 1924 bound for Panama to begin the first in the lengthy series of exercises comprising the annual fleet maneuvers. Overhaul kept USS Bainbridge (DD-246)  in New York, away from the first part of the annual maneuvers, carried out in January and February 1926. Finally, she left New York late in February to join the last stages of the annual maneuvers in the West Indies and then devoted March and April to those evolutions. 

On 9 March 1932, USS Bainbridge (DD-246) was placed in reduced commission, Lt. Comdr. Ray H. Wakeman in command. When USS Bainbridge (DD-246)  went out commission in 1937, she did so to free up sailors to man the first new destroyers of the "Two-Ocean Navy" construction program of the 1934 Vinson-Trammell Act just then beginning to enter service. At the end of January 1945, the warship headed back to the Caribbean coast of South America where she screened the new aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) during her shakedown cruise. In the course of that mission, USS Bainbridge (DD-246) sustained significant hull damage on 14 February when a practice torpedo struck her accidentally while she was serving as a target for torpedo planes. 

In June, however, she received orders to report to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for final disposition. On 21 July 1945, USS Bainbridge (DD-246) was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

For a complete history of USS Bainbridge (DD-246) please see its DANFS page.