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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --

USS Greene (DD-266, later AVD-13 and APD-36)), 1919-1946

USS Greene, a 1215-ton Clemson class destroyer, was built at Squantum, Massachusetts. Commissioned in May 1919, she made a cruise to France and England in June and July, before transferring to the Pacific later in the year. In reserve from March 1920 until September of 1921, she was then briefly active along the west coast but decommissioned in June 1922 and remained in that status for the next eighteen years.

With the World War II crisis threatening, Greene recommissioned in June 1940, was converted to a seaplane tender and redesignated AVD-13. She went to the Atlantic area in April 1941, supporting seaplanes in the Caribbean and off Brazil until mid-1942. Greene operated as a convoy escort from then until late in 1943, also joining the escort carriers Bogue (CVE-9) and Core (CVE-13) on anti-submarine hunter-killer operations during the latter year. Her cruises with Bogue in April-June 1943 resulted in the sinking of three German U-boats and earned Greene a Presidential Unit Citation.

Greene reverted to the hull number DD-266 from December 1943 to February 1944. She was modified for future service as a high-speed transport during early 1944 and was redesignated APD-36 for that role. In April 1944, Greene crossed the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, where she participated in the invasion of Southern France in August. Subsequent Mediterranean escort duties kept her occupied until December 1944, when returned to the U.S. for transfer to the Pacific.

Arriving in the Western Pacific in March 1945, Greene performed escort and other anti-submarine tasks during the Okinawa operation and up to the Japanese capitulation in August. In September, she evacuated former prisoners of war from Japan. A typhoon blew her ashore on Okinawa on 9 October 1945. The old ship was not worth repairing and USS Greene decommissioned in November. Her hulk was destroyed in February 1946.

This page features all our views of USS Greene.

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.

Photo #: NH 70868

USS Greene (DD-266)


Photographed in 1919-22.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 68KB; 740 x 505 pixels

 
Photo #: 80-G-302954

High-speed Transports (APD)


At Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria, in late 1944. The APDs present, in center, are:
USS Greene (APD-36) -- closest to camera;
USS Osmond Ingram (APD-35) -- next inboard;
USS Barry (APD-29);
USS Roper (APD-20); and
USS Tattnall (APD-19).
At the extreme right is USS Hilary P. Jones (DD-427).
This photograph was dated January 1945, but was taken at least a month earlier.
Note old fort in the background.

Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

Online Image: 132KB; 740 x 530 pixels

Reproductions of this image may also be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system.

 


 

The following images were taken during USS Greene's construction:

Photo #: NH 43152

Victory Destroyer Plant, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, Massachusetts


View of the open dock, with destroyers fitting out, including USS Shubrick (DD-268, builder's # 348), Ballard (DD-267, builder's # 347) and (probably) Greene (DD-266, builder's # 346).
Note destroyer mast, with crow's nest, lying on the pier at left.
Photographed between 27 April and 3 May 1919 by Monks & Johnson, Boston, Mass.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 117KB; 740 x 625 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 43157

Victory Destroyer Plant, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, Massachusetts


Interior of the wet slips, with USS Bailey (DD-269, builder's Hull # 349) fitting out in the center. The less-advanced hull to the right may be USS Morris (DD-271). Of the ships represented on the "thermometer" progress chart at left, Hulls 346-348 -- Greene (DD-266), Ballard (DD-267) and Shubrick (DD-268) -- were completing outdoors at this time and Hull 345, USS Edwards (DD-265), had been commissioned on 24 April.
Photographed between 27 April and 3 May 1919 by Monks & Johnson, Boston, Mass.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 172KB; 740 x 615 pixels

 


In addition to the images presented above, the National Archives appears to hold other views of USS Greene, taken in 1942-43, when she was designated AVD-13. The following list features some of these images:

The images listed below are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections.
DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • Photo #: 80-G-2232
    USS Greene (AVD-13) at Bermuda in 1942.
    Starboard broadside surface view.

  • Photo #: 80-G-66787
    USS Greene (AVD-13) in Placentia Sound, Newfoundland, in April 1943.
    Port bow surface view, taken by a USS Ranger (CV-4) photographer.

  • Photo #: 80-G-208010
    USS Greene (AVD-13) off the U.S. east coast (position 36-52'N, 75 32'W, steaming on course 264 degrees at 0935 hrs on 2 December 1943.
    Port bow aerial view, taken from a blimp of squadron ZP-14, flying from Naval Air Station, Weeksville, North Carolina.

    Reproductions of these images should be available through the National Archives photographic reproduction system for pictures not held by the Naval Historical Center.

    The images listed in this box are NOT in the Naval Historical Center's collections. DO NOT try to obtain them using the procedures described in our page "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions".


  • If you want higher resolution reproductions than the digital images presented here, see: "How to Obtain Photographic Reproductions."


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    30 June 2000