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

Photo # NH 99254:  USS Preston underway, 1912

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

USS Preston (Destroyer # 19), 1909-1919

USS Preston, a 700-ton Smith class destroyer, was built at Camden, New Jersey. Commissioned in December 1909, she served along the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean area until the United States entered World War I in April 1917. For the next three months the destroyer was employed on patrol and escort duties in the western Atlantic. Preston performed similar work while based in the Azores during August-October 1917 and while operating out of Brest, France for the rest of the conflict. In December 1918, a month after the Armistice ended the fighting, she steamed back to the United States. After a period of relative inactivity at Charleston, South Carolina, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USS Preston was decommissioned in July 1919. She was sold in November of that year.

USS Preston was named in honor of Lieutenant Samuel W. Preston, USN (1840-1865), who was killed in action during the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, in January 1865.

This page features all the views we have related to USS Preston (Destroyer # 19).


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 99266

USS Preston
(Destroyer # 19)

Fine screen halftone reproduction of a photograph of Preston running builder's trials, circa late 1909.
Copied from "The New Navy of the United States", by N.L. Stebbins, (New York, 1912).

Donation of David Shadell, 1987.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 62KB; 740 x 495 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 44198

USS Preston
(Destroyer # 19)

At anchor soon after completion, circa 1910, with crewmen engaged in aiming practice with her forward gun.
Note that Preston still retains her original low smokestacks.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 56KB; 740 x 505 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 99254

USS Preston
(Destroyer # 19)

Underway in 1912.
Photographed by C.E. Waterman, Hampton, Virginia.

Courtesy of the Naval Historical Foundation.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 64KB; 740 x 485 pixels

 
Photo #: NH 98604-B

USS Preston
(Destroyer # 19)

With several other destroyers in the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Reserve Basin, circa spring 1919.
Cropped from a panoramic photograph (Photo # NH 98604) taken by Keystone Photo Studios, 817 So. Broad St., Philadelphia.

Collection of Eugene Bennett, donated by his daughter, Jene B. Hart, September 1988.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 81KB; 740 x 575 pixels

 


USS Preston (Destroyer # 19) is probably seen in the following photograph:

Photo #: NH 99867

Destroyers in port, 4 January 1914


These are probably members of the First Division, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla, which included (on 1 January 1914): Smith (Destroyer # 17), Lamson (Destroyer # 18), Preston (Destroyer # 19), Flusser (Destroyer # 20) and Reid (Destroyer # 21). Smith and Lamson had their smokestacks arranged like the ship in the middle (1-2-1). Preston had four equally-spaced smokestacks, like the destroyer second from right.
This photo is one of a series from the collection of a USS Walke (Destroyer # 34) crewmember, a three-stack member of the Second Division, U.S. Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla. A destroyer of that division is visible in the left background.

Courtesy of Jim Kazalis, 1981.

U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.

Online Image: 61KB; 740 x 445 pixels

 


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


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Page made 15 April 2004
New image added 31 December 2004