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USS Gregory (APD-3)

Please see below for item level image and donated collections containing photographs of USS Gregory (APD-3)

USS Gregory (Destroyer No. 82) was laid down on 25 August 1917 at Quincy, Mass., by the Fore River SHip Building Co.; launched on 27 January 1918; sponsored by Mrs. George S. [ALice] Trevor, great-randdaughter of Admiral Gregory; and commissioned on 1 June 1918, Comdr. Arthur P. Fairfield in command.

Joining a convoy at New York, Gregory sailed for Brest, France, 25 June 1918. She spent the final summer of the war escorting convoys from the French port to various Allied ports in Britain and France. As the war neared its close, Gregory was assigned to the patrol squadron at Gibraltar 2 November 1918. After brief tours in reserve at Tompkinsville, N.Y., the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Gregory sailed to Charleston, S.C., 4 January 1921. A year of local training operations out of the southern port ended 12 April 1922 when USS Gregory (Destroyer No. 82) entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard. She decommissioned 7 July 1922 and went into reserve.

As war broke again over Europe, threatening to involve the United States, USS Gregory (Destroyer No. 82) and three other four-stackers were taken out of mothballs for conversion to high-speed transports. USS Gregory (Destroyer No. 82) recommissioned 4 November 1940 as APD-3 and joined USS Little, USS Colhoun, and USS McKean to form Transport Division 12. USS Gregory (APD-3) and her sister APD's trained along the East Coast for the following year perfecting landing techniques with various Marine divisions. On 27 January 1942. with war already raging in the Pacific, USS Gregory (APD-3) departed Charleston for Pearl Harbor. Exercises in Hawaiian waters kept TransDiv 12 in the Pacific through the spring, after which they returned to San Diego for repairs.

On 4 September USS Gregory (APD-3) and USS Little were returning to their anchorage at Tulagi after transferring a Marine Raider Battalion to Savo Island. At 0056 on the morning of 5 September, USS Gregory (APD-3) and USS Little -saw flashes of gunfire which they assumed came from a Japanese submarine until radar showed four targets-apparently a cruiser had joined the three DD's. A Navy pilot had also seen the gunfire and, assuming it came from a Japanese submarine, dropped a string of five flares almost on top of the two APD's. USS Gregory (APD-3) and USS Little, silhouetted against the blackness, were spotted immediately by the Japanese destroyers, Who opened fire at 0100. USS Gregory (APD-3) brought all her guns to bear but was desperately overmatched and less than 3 minutes after the fatal flares had been dropped, was dead in the water and beginning to sink. Two boilers had burst and her decks were a mass of flames.

At 0123, with all of USS Gregory (APD-3)'s and most of USS Little's crew in the water, the Japanese Ships began shelling again- aiming not at the crippled ships but at their helpless-crews in the water. All but 11 of USS Gregory (APD-3)'s crew survived, 6 of them swimming through the night all the way to Guadalcanal. USS Gregory (APD-3) sank stern first some 40 minutes after the firing had begun, and was followed 2 hours later by USS Little. 

For a complete history of USS Gregory (APD-3) please see its DANFS page.