USS Fairfax ( DD - 93 ) USS " Fairfax " ( DD - 93 ) was a " Wickes " - class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War I , later transferred to the Royal Navy as HMS " Richmond " ( G88 ) , as a Town class destroyer . USS " Fairfax " . Named in honor of Rear Admiral Donald Fairfax , she was launched 15 December 1917 by Mare Island Navy Yard ; sponsored by Mrs . H . George ; and commissioned 6 April 1918 , Lieutenant Commander Stanford Caldwell Hooper in command . " Fairfax " arrived at Hampton Roads 6 June 1918 for convoy escort duty out of Newport News . She guarded convoys of troop transports to midocean meeting points with escorts who had come out of English and French ports to meet them . " Fairfax " also guarded convoys moving between coastal ports , and patrolled off the coast until 16 October , when she stood down Hampton Roads bound for Brest , France , escorting a troop convoy . On 18 October , she left her convoy to rescue 86 survivors of torpedoed USS " Lucia " , an NOTS ship , and on 27 October , arrived at Brest for patrol and escort duty in European waters . On 3 December 1918 , " Fairfax " arrived in the Azores to meet and escort to Brest , the transport " George Washington " carrying President Woodrow Wilson to the Peace Conference . She sailed for home 21 December , reaching Norfolk 8 January 1919 . Her post war operations along the east coast and in the Caribbean were broken in May 1919 , when she sailed to the Azores to take up station as an observer of the historic first aerial crossing of the Atlantic made by Navy seaplanes . On 19 June 1922 , she was decommissioned at Philadelphia , and placed in reserve . Recommissioned 1 May 1930 , " Fairfax " operated primarily on training cruises for members of the Naval Reserve during the following 2 years , based at Newport , Rhode Island , and Camden , New Jersey . On 12 March 1932 she sailed from Hampton Roads for San Diego , California , arriving 26 March . On the west coast , too , her primary duty was training reservists , but she also took part in gunnery exercises and fleet problems off Mexico , Central America , and the Panama Canal Zone . " Fairfax " took part in the Presidential Review taken by Franklin D . Roosevelt in San Diego in March 1933 , and then sailed for the East coast , where she continued her reserve training duty . She also patrolled in Cuban waters , and in the summers of 1935 , 1937 , 1938 , 1939 , and 1940 sailed out of Annapolis training midshipmen of the Naval Academy . Between October 1935 and March 1937 , she served with the Special Service Squadron out of Coco Solo and Balboa , Canal Zone , operating primarily on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone . The destroyer joined in representing the United States Navy at the opening of the New York City World ' s Fair in April 1939 , and after World War II broke out in Europe that fall , operated on neutrality patrol along with her training duties . On 21 November 1940 , she arrived at Halifax , Nova Scotia , where she was decommissioned 26 November , and transferred to Great Britain under the destroyers for - land - bases exchange agreement . See USS " Fairfax County " ( LST - 1193 ) for that ship . HMS " Richmond " . The former " Fairfax " was commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS " Richmond " ( Pennant number G88 ) 5 December 1940 . She arrived at Plymouth , England , 31 December 1940 to join the escorts sailing out of Liverpool in the Western Approaches Command . These ships guarded the movement of vital convoys through the most dangerous waters of their passage across the $ 3 . Between June and October 1941 , she performed similar duty in the Newfoundland Force , and from February 1942 through March , made the dangerous run to Murmansk . Her base for Atlantic escort duty between December 1942 and August 1943 was Greenock , Scotland . " Richmond " served in the Royal Canadian Navy , based at St . John ' s , Newfoundland , until December 1943 , when with newer escorts available , she was placed in reserve in the Tyne . On 16 July 1944 she was transferred to the Soviet Navy . " Zhivuchiy " . The former " Richmond " was commissioned in the Soviet Navy as " Zhivuchiy " ( rus . Живучий , " Survivable " ) on 24 August 1944 . The Soviet Union returned her in June 1949 to Britain , which sold her for scrap in July of that year .