Naval History and Heritage Command

Edward McCall -- born on 5 August 1790, a son of a prominent revolutionary family from Charleston, South Carolina -- was appointed midshipman on New Year’s Day 1806 at the age of fifteen.  The youngster accepted his appointment in April and remained at Charleston where he was attached to that station.  In July, the Navy ordered him to the brig Hornet on which he is first recorded 6 January 1809.  He served on board that vessel as she transported General James Wilkinson to New Orleans, cruised in home waters to enforce the Embargo Act, and carried dispatches to Holland, France, and England.  There he served with an officer with whom his fate was closely intertwined, Lt. William Burrows.

After Hornet returned from Europe, Midshipman McCall received a furlough, but remained on the Navy payroll until 20 February 1811. One month later, the Navy ordered him back to Hornet -- now rebuilt and ship-rigged -- as sailing master. His tenure on board his old ship was short if he indeed stepped on board at all, for on 4 April 1811, the Navy reassigned him to the brig Enterprise. On 16 October 1811, McCall was commissioned lieutenant during a time of escalating tension with Great Britain.  The United States declared war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812.

In late August 1813, Lt. William Burrows took command of Enterprise with Lt. McCall as his first lieutenant.  On 5 September, lookouts sighted a vessel against the coastline of Maine that soon proved to be the British gun-brig Boxer commanded by Cmdr. Samuel Blythe. Enterprise and Boxer were comparable in size, with the American having a slight advantage in guns and a more substantial advantage in complement. As the British vessel broke her ensign, Enterprise broke her own.  From first sighting at 8:30 a.m., the two vessels patiently jockeyed for position and the weather gauge.  Burrows sailed the brig seaward and at the correct moment shortened sail and set course toward land and Boxer.

By 3:20 in the afternoon, the combatants closed within a half pistol-shot of each other and opened with furious broadsides of 18-pounder carronades. The very first exchange unleashed hellish destruction upon Boxer and her crew. When the storm of shot and splinters subsided Captain Blythe was dead, killed by a direct hit from an eighteen pounder after nailing his brig’s ensign to the mast. Two broadsides later, Lt. Burrows, assisting his men in running out a carronade, received a wound from a musket or canister ball that struck him in the thigh and its trajectory carried it into his torso. Despite being mortally wounded and in great pain, he refused to be carried below. While propped up on the quarterdeck, he, like his former commander James Lawrence “requested that the flag might never be struck.”

With her dying commander lying on deck, McCall immediately took command. Having run with the wind before the initial shots were fired and severely damaged Boxer’s rigging with her volleys, the American vessel moved along Boxer’s starboard beam, discharging broadsides as she out-sailed her foe. Soon Enterprise brought her port guns to bear on Boxer’s starboard bow, and forereached the British vessel, crossing her bow. The American brig’s maneuvers, either by luck or by foresight, left a 9-pounder earlier placed by Burrows out his cabin window with a point blank shot over the Royal Navy vessel’s prow. The gun raked Boxer’s deck as Enterprise opened the distance.  After several reports of the 9-pounder, McCall turned his ship starboard and delivered a diagonal rake with her broadside carronades that felled the British main top mast.  Leaving her crippled foe limping behind, Enterprise continued to rake Boxer alternately with her 9-pounder or carronades.

Forty-five minutes after the engagement began the British sailors finally hailed the Americans and shouted their surrender.  As Lt. McCall arranged to take Boxer as his prize, and care for the wounded of both ships, Lt. Burrows died of his wounds.  The officer returned to Portland, Mass. (now Maine) with the captured Boxer.  McCall remained in the port town attending to matters relating to the capture until he was relieved on 19 October by Enterprise’s new commander. The Navy assigned him to be the first lieutenant in the sloop Ontario which was blockaded in the Chesapeake for the remainder of the war.

Congress and the public honored Lt. McCall for his part in Enterprise’s victory. The citizens of Portland feted the young officer and Congress struck a Congressional Gold Medal in his likeness, the highest honor that body bestowed at the time. While Ontario lay trapped in the Chesapeake, McCall also received a ceremonial sword from the ’76 Society of Charleston. On 12 March 1814, the Navy granted him six weeks of furlough after which he reported to the frigate Java under construction in Baltimore. The frigate sailed to the Mediterranean in 1815 as part of a squadron assembled to confront the Dey of Algiers. The Barbary State Algiers had preyed on U.S. shipping while the war with Britain raged and the squadron sought to coerce her into honoring a treaty. The U.S. squadron forced the Dey to sign a treaty in 1815 to end such behavior.  Next, she visited Tripoli with Constellation, Ontario, and Erie to show the strength of the United States. Finally, after cruising the Mediterranean stopping at Syracuse, Messina, Palermo, Tunis, Gibraltar, and Naples, the frigate returned to Newport early in 1817.

Following the Mediterranean cruise, the Navy assigned McCall his first command, Gunboat No. 168, out of his native Charleston. In October, he took the ship south to St. Mary’s, Ga., to protect American timber reserves at the port.  He was back in Charleston on shore duty from the late spring 1818 until July 1819.  Following this assignment, he served successively at the Baltimore and Philadelphia Navy Yards until 1826.  The Navy promoted him to master commandant on 3 March 1825. He continued his shore service at Pensacola, Fla., for a year before transferring to New York City in October 1828 for duty at the Naval Rendezvous in order to recruit seamen for a proposed circumnavigation of the world.

The veteran officer obtained his first sea command in over ten years on board the brig Peacock.  The assignment was intended to be an adventurous one for the naval hero who had been laid up on shore duty for so long.  President John Quincy Adams intended Peacock to circle the globe for scientific and exploratory purposes.  Funding for the expedition, however, languished in Congress and Master Commandant McCall instead sailed to the West Indies on a two-year cruise. Afterward, he requested a leave of absence, which was granted.  His cruise to the West Indies, however, proved to be his last assignment. On 3 March 1835, ten years after his previous promotion, the Navy promoted him to captain.

McCall continued to await orders, but ultimately died at Bordentown, N.J., on 31 July 1853.

I

(Destroyer No. 28; displacement 742 (standard); length 289'0", beam 26'1½", draft 8'4", speed 30.66 knots, complement 91; armament 5 3-inch, 6 18-inch torpedo tubes; class Paulding)

The first McCall (Destroyer No. 28) was laid down on 8 June 1909 at Camden, N.J., by New York Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 4 June 1910; sponsored by Mrs. Jessie Willits; and commissioned on 23 January 1911 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pa., Lt. Cmdr. John T. Tompkins in command.

Attached to the Torpedo Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, McCall operated along the Atlantic coast, principally out of Newport, R.I., and in the waters of Chesapeake Bay. Each winter found her with the fleet in Cuban waters for maneuvers and gunnery training.

With war raging in Europe since the summer of 1914, McCal1 conducted neutrality patrols based out of New York City, N.Y. beginning in May 1916.  In October 1916, McCall and several other destroyers conducted a reconnaissance on the coast of New England in response to the actions of U-53 (Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, commanding), which visited Newport and subsequently sank five merchantmen off the coast of Massachusetts. McCall found no signs of German activity or violation of U.S. neutrality laws.

On 6 April 1917, McCall lay at the Philadelphia Navy Yard moored alongside Pier No. 4, undergoing repairs, when she received a message at 3:00 p.m. that the U.S. had declared war upon Imperial Germany. McCall’s commanding officer requested a sizeable list of repairs and alterations, including enlarging the radio room, installation of mine tracks, and replacement of torpedoes. Less than an hour into the mid watch the next day [12:05 a.m.] the yard fire alarm roused sailors from their slumber.  The alarm sounded again at 1:30 p.m., and McCall’s complement responded to the fire at Building No. 10, leaving behind a party of armed sentries to defend the ship in case the episode was an enemy attempt at sabotage.

McCall set course for New York at the end of May and arrived there on 23 May 1917. She assisted Allen (Destroyer No. 66), when the latter ran aground in Hells Gate [N.Y.]. The destroyer escorted transports as part of a convoy from New York to Europe beginning on 14 June. Detached from the convoy on 25 June, she steamed to Newfoundland, Canada, then sailed for New York at 5:00 p.m. on 30 June. Experiencing troubles with her turbines, however, McCall put in to the Boston Navy Yard on Independence Day, where she underwent the necessary repairs, work that extended through July. She conducted post-repair trials on 2 August and then on 7 August cleared Boston, escorting the converted yacht Mayflower.

After arriving at Hampton Roads, Va., and delivering Mayflower to her destination, McCall escorted New York (Battleship No. 34) to New York Harbor, arriving there on 11 August 1917. From 14 August to 7 September, she operated out of New York and prepared for convoy duty. She rendezvoused with an outbound convoy off Tompkinsville, Staten Island, N.Y., on 7 September.

On the following day [8 September 1917], McCall set course for Europe shepherding a convoy of troop transports bound for Europe. McCall experienced a difficult crossing, as her smaller size and outdated engines made it difficult for her to keep up with the larger, more stable transports, most of which had plied the transatlantic shipping lanes as passenger liners in peacetime. She suffered damage to her forecastle and fell behind the convoy. Europe-based destroyers relieved McCall from escort duty on 18 September and she headed for the U.S. Attempting to oil in a gale during the return voyage, she received damage in the rough seas.

Putting in to the Norfolk Navy Yard on 30 September 1917, McCall underwent repairs there (1-27 October).  Operating on the York River, Va. (28 October-30 November), she conducted anti-submarine patrols and convoys and unsuccessfully attempted to locate survivors from an overturned picket boat on 31 October.

McCall next formed part of the escort for Pennsylvania (Battleship No. 38) and Alabama (Battleship No. 8) as the capital ships proceeded from Hampton Roads to New York in early December, then began a stint of escort duty out of that port.  While leaving New York Harbor on a dark and snowy 14 December morning, McCall was nearly crushed between a steamer to starboard and Indiana (Battleship No. 1) to port.  At 2:35 a.m., a gale forced McCall to drag anchor in the middle of a blizzard and she drifted into the steamer Gravesend.  As Lt. Edward K. Lang, McCall’s commanding officer maneuvered the vessel free from the steamer, the darkened silhouette of Indiana loomed out of the snow, drifting toward McCall and the steamer. By skillful application of engines, Lt. Lang was able to swing McCall free of her predicament, but not before his ship had a slight collision with another steamer.  The episode left dents and a 2'6" hole on the warship’s starboard side. McCall returned to Navy Yard New York for repairs. A board of inquiry ruled that McCall’s officers and men were not to blame for the collision. Completing repairs in mid-January, the ship prepared for distant service. On New Year’s Eve 1917, McCall steamed for Europe with other destroyers, as well as repair ships, tenders and submarines. She touched at Bermuda, the Azores, Portugal, and Brest, France, en route, and ultimately reached Queenstown [Cobh], Ireland on 22 February 1918.

Moored to destroyer tender Dixie at Queenstown, McCall prepared for escort and patrol duty (22-26 February 1918). She departed Queenstown on 27 February to meet an inbound convoy. While the destroyers formed a scouting line looking for the assigned vessels, McCall fell behind the other escorts and out of sight at 11:44 p.m., due to poor oil. She caught up with the escorts on the following morning at 6:55 a.m., and rejoined the scouting line. Sighting a convoy of 30 ships, she took her station on the port quarter of the northern line and continued to France.  After leaving the convoy on 2 March she returned to Queenstown for minor repairs. She escorted Troop Convoy 22 and Troop Convoy 23 in March and convoy HH-47 to Brest without encountering an enemy submarine. While escorting the armed British transport Teutonic on 6 April, she dropped two depth charges on an oil slick at 2:45 p.m. that brought oil to the surface, but which did not appear to be from a submerged submarine. Forty-five minutes later, however, she sighted a lifeboat and rescued three survivors from the British steamer Cyrene, that had been sunk by UC-31 (Kapitänleutnant Kurt Siewert, commanding), the previous day [5 April].

On 26 April 1918, McCall was serving as an escort when a dense fog descended on the convoy.  At 5:17 p.m., the crew heard a fog whistle and sighted the crew of the U.S. merchantman Westerly abandoning ship. McCall dispatched her executive officer, a chief carpenter’s mate, chief mechanic’s mate and two armed men who compelled the crew of Westerly to return to their vessel. After an earlier collision which rammed her amidships, the crew abandoned Westerly without making any attempt to save her. The crew panicked as water flooded the engine room and fire room from a one foot-hole. McCall’s sailors endeavored to save the merchantman, conducting various emergency repairs necessary to keep her afloat, even using kitchen knives to manufacture collision mats out of tarps and placing them over the breach in the hull, temporarily stopping Westerly from taking water. The British sloop HMS Camellia took the vessel in tow set course for Queenstown.  At 1:40 a.m., on 27 April, however, Westerly’s crewmen abandoned the slowly sinking vessel as her upper decks were awash, and the ship sank at 6:50 a.m.  Later, Lt. Lang insisted that Westerly could have been saved if her crew had cooperated from the start and attempted to avert her loss.

While underway to meet convoy HJD-4 on 5 May 1918, McCall’s lookouts spotted an oil slick and a moving wake.  Believing the disturbances could be a submerged submarine, McCall dropped nine depth charges and fired some from her Y-gun without apparent result. She witnessed what appeared to be one torpedo passing nearby the ship on both the 12th and 13th of May but was able to escort convoy HS-36 to Brest, France without loss.

At 9:41 p.m. on 25 May 1918, McCall received orders from Queenstown by wireless to assist the British steamer Rathlin Head, that had been hit by three torpedoes in two separate attacks from U-46 (Kapitänleutnant Leo Hillebrand).  Locating one lifeboat, she took on board some survivors and circled the damaged merchantman.  Finding another lifeboat she received word from those on board that two torpedoes had just passed astern of McCall. The destroyer closed on the reported origin of the torpedoes and dropped 12 depth charges without result. She then continued circling until the British vessel Cartmel arrived and picked up the remaining survivors. Next Cartmel informed McCall that yet another two torpedoes had passed her astern. With no sighting of a submarine to attack, McCall returned to Berehaven, Ireland, with the damaged ships and two British vessels towing her. McCall left Rathlin Head outside of the Berehaven anti-submarine net.

McCall continued to escort convoys while based out of Queenstown until 9 June 1918 when her steam steering engine became disabled at 11:45 p.m., at which point she lost track of her convoy, and her crew spent much of the next 24 hours attempting to repair damage to her rudder, steering gear, and fire room oil pump.  After that trying day, McCall arrived at Woodside stage at Liverpool, England, and continued to the Cammel Laird shipyard for needed repairs, entering dry dock on 13 June. She remained in the yard until 25 June, when she steamed out of the Mersey River to assist in escorting outbound convoy OE-17. She left the convoy for Queenstown on 1 July, and arrived on the same day.

After departing from convoy duty, McCall spotted a submarine conning tower awash on the surface three miles away at 6:45 a.m. on 10 July 1918, then closed at full speed, firing at the unknown vessel. The destroyer broke off her attack when two minutes into the attack her target issued recognition signals and identified herself as L-2. On 15 July, she was zigzagging two miles ahead of a convoy at 7:02 a.m., when the quartermaster sighted an oil slick on the starboard bow running parallel to McCall. She followed the slick to its source and dropped several depth charges. The charges brought up more oil, but Lt. Lang, her commanding officer, opined that the oil emanated from a submerged wreck, not a submarine.

McCall continued to serve on convoy duty throughout August and into September of 1918. On 7 September, as she was escorting convoy OL-34, a torpedo from UB-87 (Kapitänleutnant Karl Patri) slammed into the British passenger steamer Missanabie at 12:30 p.m. Lookouts on board McCall saw the torpedo wake and followed it to its origin, after which the ship steered toward the scene and dropped 11 depth charges. At 12:39 p.m., Missanabie’s bow rose nearly vertical and the vessel plunged into the depths. McCall put lines over into the water, and retrieved three of Missanabie’s crewmen, then lowered a whaleboat to recover more. The destroyer then circled the waters surrounding the sinking as other escorts continued to pull survivors from the sea. After circling the scene for two hours, McCall hoisted her whaleboat on board along with seven survivors.  At 8:57 p.m., McCall departed the convoy and set course for Milford Haven, Wales, to disembark Missanabie’s survivors, arriving the following day and returning to Queenstown.  Vice Adm. William S. Sims, Commander of U.S. Naval Forces in European Waters, commended McCall for her actions during the rescue.

McCall participated in short escort and patrol missions throughout September and October 1918. She then helped escort Battleship Division Six (BatDiv6) on the last leg of its voyage to Berehaven where they were to protect troop convoys against possible attacks from raiders. Her final wartime convoy began on 4 November when she escorted convoy AL-11 from Holyhead, Wales, to Berehaven.

McCall returned to Queenstown at 9:55 p.m. on 6 November 1918 and lay moored at Berehaven when the Armistice went into effect on 11 November. Although the fighting had ended, however, McCall continued to escort inbound and outbound convoys since German submarines were still at sea. She encountered a U-Boat on 16 November and sped toward the vessel which escaped. After a drydocking at Queenstown (4-9 December), she began her voyage home on 16 December, nine days before Christmas. Upon her return to the U.S. in January 1919, McCall resumed east coast operations until decommissioned at Philadelphia and being placed in reserve on 12 December 1919.

McCall remained in reserve for the next four and a half years -- being re-designated DD-28 on 17 July 1920 – until being transferred on 7 June 1924 to the Treasury Department at Philadelphia Navy Yard for service with the U.S. Coast Guard. Assigned to service with the Coast Guard’s Destroyer Force, she was to interdict the illegal importation of alcohol in the enforcement of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition). It was initially believed that the re-activation of those destroyers in reserve would be a cost-effective expedient to bolster the Coast Guard’s patrol fleet against the bootleggers in the so-called “Rum War.” In the end, however, the rehabilitation of the destroyers became a saga in itself because of the exceedingly poor condition of many of the war-weary ships. It took nearly a year to remove the installed antisubmarine warfare equipment and rehabilitate these vessels in order to bring them up to seaworthiness and operational capability. Additionally, the destroyers were by far the largest and most sophisticated vessels ever operated by the Coast Guard; trained crewmen were nearly non-existent. As a result, Congress subsequently authorized hundreds of new enlisted billets. It was these inexperienced recruits that generally made up the destroyer crews.

Commissioned on 17 June 1925 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Lt. Cmdr. Fred A. Nichols, USCG, in command, McCall arrived at her permanent duty station at New London for service with Division 4 under Cmdr. Harry G. Hamlet, USCG (later Commandant of the Coast Guard) on 19 June. While capable of well over 25 knots -- seemingly an advantage in the interdicting rumrunners -- McCall was easily outmaneuvered by smaller vessels. Consequently, the destroyer picketed the larger supply ships ("mother ships") on Rum Row in an attempt to prevent them from off-loading their illicit cargo onto the smaller, speedier contact boats that ran the liquor into shore. An indicator of McCall’s operational capability was her performance in the Coast Guard’s annual gunnery exercises. During her first gunnery competition in the Coast Guard, Gunnery Year 1925-26, McCall rated 14th in a field of 22 ships, which combined destroyers and first-rate cutters, firing the Short-Range and Long-Range Battle Practices. Later, in the Gunnery Year 1928-29, she would stand 12th overall in the field of 24 destroyers.

A curious tale of McCall’s Prohibition mission proved to be her interaction with the Canadian (British-flagged) schooner Gaspé Fisherman out of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. For three years, McCall and her compatriots monitored this well-known rumrunner, linked to the Staten Island-based Fox-Levine Gang, as she plied the waters off New England -- an example of the frustrating ordeal that the enforcement of this law proved to be for the Coast Guard.

On 30 June 1926, McCall was picketing off Nantucket, Mass., when she encountered Gaspé Fisherman at anchor. Knowing of the ship’s reputation, the destroyer requested the dispatch of two patrol boats from CG Base 3. The schooner got underway at 0850 on 1 July. The patrol boats CG-147 and CG-211 reported for duty at 1835 and McCall took them in tow and maintained the surveillance of the rumrunner. Over time, the Coast Guard vessels lost Gaspé Fisherman. Eventually, CG-211, under her own power, relocated her quarry around 1530 on 2 July, and was then joined by CG-147 at 2000. The next day, in a lingering fog, the patrol boats maintained contact with the schooner and were subsequently re-joined by McCall. At 1700, the schooner attempted to evade her pursuers. Violating all “rules of the road,” she made multiple attempts to ram CG-211. She continued maneuvering frantically through the succeeding hours and made her escape in the night and fog. Having lost the Canadian schooner, McCall continued to search for her in the vicinity, but the endeavor proved fruitless. The encounter prompted Lt. Cmdr. Clarence H. Dench, USCG, commanding officer of the destroyer Davis (CG-21), to lament “Given a smart run vessel cleverly handled, a destroyer cannot maintain contact in a dense fog.” He further noted that patrol boats also have difficulty in maintaining contact with rumrunners and given their size, are vulnerable to being rammed. In frustration, Dench concluded, “The Coast Guard needs above all, better laws, not more ships, to work with.”

That action, however, precipitated an international incident. As Canada was a member of the British Commonwealth, Rear Adm. Frederick C. Billard, Commandant of the Coast Guard, reported the incident to J.G.A. Robertson, the King’s Counsel at Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, on 7 October. That incident, in conjunction with like actions by other British-flagged vessels -- the steamer Herbert Green and the schooner Oakalee (seized by McCall on 20 January 1926) -- prompted a protest to His Majesty’s Government from the U.S. State Department.

McCall, on 14 January 1928, came upon Gaspé Fisherman, off Nantucket. The destroyer found the schooner, loaded with champagne, afire and abandoned by her crew. After observing the vessel’s 8-man crew in two dories about a half-mile distant, she maneuvered to rescue them. After pulling the rum-runners on board, McCall returned to the burning vessel, and as the derelict constituted a hazard to navigation, she sank her with 3-inch gunfire. The destroyer then departed for Boston to put the survivors ashore. Initially pausing at Deer Island, where immigration officials questioned the survivors during the morning of the 15th, the ship moved on to the Boston Navy Yard and anchored. The saga with Gaspé Fisherman was at an end.

McCall, as part of Division 4, received orders from the Special Patrol Force on 10 March 1928, to be based at Charleston (S.C.) Navy Yard. The ship’s grueling anti-smuggling interdiction duties off the Eastern seaboard, however, wore on her and, over time, she, along with 11 of her fellow former-U.S.N. destroyers, had become unfit for service.

Decommissioned at New London on 20 December 1929, McCall was ordered towed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 12 August 1930, preparatory to her return to the Navy. Transferred at Philadelphia on 18 October 1930, McCall remained in a decommissioned status until she was sold on 2 May 1934 to Michael Flynn, Inc., Brooklyn, N.Y. for scrapping in accordance with the London Naval Treaty for the Reduction of Naval Armament.

S. Matthew Cheser

Christopher B. Havern Sr.

12 January 2017