USS Drayton, a 742-ton Paulding class destroyer built at Bath, Maine, was commissioned in late October 1910. She operated along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean for the first six and a half years of her service, taking part in regular fleet exercises and, in 1914, participating in operations off Mexico. In April 1917, as the U.S. entered World War I, Drayton seized the German steamer Frieda Leonhardt.
Following brief patrol duty off the Atlantic Coast, in May 1917 Drayton crossed the Atlantic to the British Isles. Operating out of Queenstown, Ireland, she escorted convoys, made antisubmarine patrols and rescued survivors of two torpedoed merchant ships. Drayton's base was shifted to Brest, France, in February 1918. She worked from there for the rest of World War I, leaving to return to the U.S. in mid-December 1918. Her post-war active service was brief, consisting of routine exercises during the first half of 1919, after which she was sent to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to be laid up. USS Drayton was decommissioned in November 1919 and remained in reserve for more than a decade and a half. Her name was reduced to DD-23 in July 1933, and she was sold for scrapping in June 1935.
USS Drayton was named in honor of Captain Percival Drayton, USN (1812-1865), who performed notable service during the Civil War.
This page features all the views we have concerning USS Drayton (Destroyer # 23, later DD-23).
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Click on the small photograph to prompt a larger view of the same image.
USS Drayton is seen, distantly, in the left center
of the following photograph:
Photo #: NH 76418 U.S. Atlantic Fleet at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, circa 1916-1917 Second section from left (of six) of a panoramic photograph taken from the Naval Station radio tower. Among the ships present are: battleships South Carolina and Michigan (toward the left, in no particular order); destroyers Drayton (left center) and Aylwin (center, middle distance); and a battleship that is either Wyoming or Arkansas (right foreground). See Photo # s NH 76415 and NH 76416 for a reproduction of the entire original panoramic image. Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation, Washington, D.C. Donation of MMC Jesse Forton, USN (Retired), 1972. U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Online Image: 56KB; 740 x 435 pixels |
![]() |
If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions." |
Page made 20 June 2004