USS Winslow ( DD - 53 ) USS " Winslow " ( Destroyer No . 53 / DD - 53 ) was an built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I . The ship was the second US Navy vessel named in honor of John Ancrum Winslow , a US Navy officer notable for sinking the Confederate commerce raider during the American Civil War . " Winslow " was laid down by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia in October 1913 and launched in February 1915 . The ship was a little more than in length , just over abeam , and had a standard displacement of . She was armed with four guns and had eight torpedo tube s . " Winslow " was powered by a pair of steam turbines that propelled her at up to . After her August 1915 commissioning , " Winslow " sailed off the east coast and in the Caribbean . She was one of seventeen destroyers sent out to rescue survivors from five victims of German submarine off the Lightship Nantucket in October 1916 . After the United States entered World War I in April 1917 , " Winslow " was sent overseas to patrol the Irish Sea out of Queenstown , Ireland . " Winslow " made several unsuccessful attacks on U - boats , and rescued survivors of several ships sunk by the German craft . Upon returning to the United States after the war , " Winslow " was placed in reduced commission in December 1919 . She was decommission ed at Philadelphia in June 1922 . In November she dropped her name to free it for a new destroyer of the same name , becoming known only as DD - 53 . She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in January 1936 and sold for scrapping in June . Design and construction . " Winslow " was authorized in March 1913 as the third of six ships of the , which was an improved version of the s authorized in 1911 . Construction of the vessel was awarded to William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia which laid down her keel on 1 October 1913 . On 11 February 1915 , " Winslow " was launched by sponsor Miss Natalie E . Winslow , grandniece of the ship ' s namesake , John Ancrum Winslow . The ship was the second ship named for Winslow , a US Navy officer notable for sinking the Confederate commerce raider during the American Civil War . As built , the destroyer was in length , abeam , and drew . The ship had a standard displacement of and displaced when fully loaded . " Winslow " had two Zoelly steam turbines that drove her two screw propellers , and an additional pair triple - expansion steam engines , each connected to one of the propeller shafts , for cruising purposes . Four oil - burning White - Forster boiler s powered the engines , which could generate , moving the ship at up to . " Winslow " s main battery consisted of four / 50 cal Mark 9 guns , with each gun weighing in excess of . The guns fired armor - piercing projectile s at . At an elevation of 20° , the guns had a range of . " Winslow " was also equipped with eight torpedo tube s . The General Board of the United States Navy had called for two anti - aircraft gun s for the " O ' Brien " - class ships , as well as provisions for laying up to 36 floating mine s . From sources , it is unclear if these recommendations were followed for " Winslow " or any of the other ships of the class . Pre - World War I . " Winslow " was commissioned into the United States Navy on 7 August 1915 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Neil E . Nichols . After trials off the upper east coast , " Winslow " joined the 6th Division , Atlantic Fleet Torpedo Flotilla . The destroyer participated in maneuvers in Cuban waters during the winter of 1915 and 1916 and , in the spring , began operations along the eastern seaboard . By October 1916 , she was serving in coastal waters near Newport , Rhode Island . At 0530 on 8 October 1916 , wireless reports came in of a German submarine stopping ships near the Lightship Nantucket , off the eastern end of Long Island . After an SOS from the British steamer was received at about 1230 , Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves ordered " Winslow " and other destroyers at Newport to attend to survivors . The American destroyers arrived on the scene about 1700 when the U - boat , under the command of " Kapitänleutnant " Hans Rose , was in the process of stopping the Holland - America Line cargo ship . Shortly after , " U - 53 " stopped the British passenger ship . As Rose had done with three other ships " U - 53 " had sunk earlier in the day , he gave passengers and crew aboard " Blommersdijk " and " Stephano " adequate time to abandon the ships before sinking the pair . In total , 226 survivors from " U - 53 " s five victims were rescued by the destroyer flotilla . At the end of October , the warship went into the New York Navy Yard and remained there through the end of the year . In January 1917 , she steamed south to Cuba , where she joined the rest of the Fleet to participate in annual winter maneuvers . Following the Fleet exercise , " Winslow " returned north to the $ 3 . World War I . When the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917 entering World War I , the destroyer was anchored in the York River near Yorktown , Virginia . She had been there guarding the river mouth since February when American relations with Germany began to deteriorate as a result of the latter country ' s return to unrestricted submarine warfare . Soon after US Congress declared war , " Winslow " moved north to the New York Navy Yard to prepare for duty overseas . Less than a month later , she moved to Boston from where she got underway for Europe on 7 May with , , , , and . After a 10 - day passage , " Winslow " reported for duty at Queenstown , Ireland , on the 17th . On the 21st , she began patrolling the approaches to the British Isles . " Winslow " operated out of Queenstown for almost a year escorting convoys into and out of Queenstown and going to the assistance of ships attacked by U - boats . Just after midnight on 11 June , she spied her first submarine and rushed to the attack . Her target submerged , and the destroyer dropped a series of depth charge s . She failed , however , to find any evidence supporting the success of her attack and resumed her patrol . On 30 July , " Winslow " picked up the master and 12 crewmen from SS " Whitehall " , torpedoed the day before by , and brought them safely into Queenstown . She sighted another U - boat off Queenstown on 16 August , but heavy weather covered the submarine ' s tracks when it submerged and " Winslow " made no attack . Six weeks later , on 24 September , the warship rushed to the assistance of " Henry Lippitt " , an unarmed American schooner being shelled by . When the destroyer reached the sailing vessel , she was in flames , and the U - boat had just submerged . " Winslow " dropped a depth charge barrage on what appeared to be the submarine ' s moving wake , but broke off the attack to assist the schooner ' s crew ; all were saved , but " Henry Lippitt " was sunk . During the remainder of her assignment at Queenstown , " Winslow " attacked two more submarines , the first on 11 October and the second on 3 January 1918 . In both cases , she depth - charged oil slicks which appeared to originate from damaged , submerged U - boats . In neither case did she receive visible confirmation of a sinking ; however , during the 3 January attack , one of her depth charges threw a large mass of dark liquid high in the air . From this description , it appears that her depth charge brought up fuel oil from what was believed to be . Unfortunately for " Winslow " , lack of definite proof kept her from being credited with a sinking . At the beginning of April 1918 , the destroyer was reassigned to the United States Naval Forces in France . Operating from Brest , she spent the remainder of the war escorting American troop transports into French ports . Although she engaged German submarines on at least seven different occasions , she did not score any confirmed successes . On 8 August , she came to the aid of , torpedoed in the Bay of Biscay earlier the same day by . On 5 September , she attacked the German submarine , which had just torpedoed U . S . Navy transport . Depth charges dropped by " Winslow " , , , and failed to sink the U - boat , but , combined with defensive efforts from " Mount Vernon " herself , helped prevent the submarine from launching a " coup de grâce " against the former German liner . " Mount Vernon " safely made it back to Brest with the loss of 37 crewmen out of the 1 , 450 persons on board . " Winslow " continued her patrols out of Brest through the end of hostilities on 11 November . Inter - war period . Following the signing of the Armistice on 11 November , which ended all fighting , " Winslow " remained in French waters . When President Woodrow Wilson arrived at Brest on on 13 December , the destroyer served as part of that transport ' s escort into the harbor . 15 days later , the warship departed France to return to the United States , arriving at New York on 12 January 1919 . After her return to the United States , " Winslow " resumed peacetime duty with the Atlantic Fleet . During May , she served as one of the rescue pickets stationed along the route across the Atlantic flown by three Navy NC - type seaplane s in the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic . After that , the destroyer returned to normal operations along the east coast and annual winter maneuvers in Cuban waters until placed in reduced commission at Philadelphia on 10 December 1919 . In July 1920 , she was assigned the hull code of " DD - 53 " under the US Navy ' s alphanumeric classification system . " Winslow " was decommission ed at Philadelphia on 5 June 1922 . On 1 July 1933 , she dropped the name " Winslow " to free it for a new destroyer of the same name , becoming known only as " DD - 53 " . The ship was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 7 January 1936 , and , on 30 June , was sold for scrapping .