USS Walker ( DD - 163 ) The first USS " Walker " ( DD - 163 ) was a " Wickes " class destroyer that saw service in the United States Navy during World War I . She was named for Admiral John Grimes Walker . History . " Walker " was laid down on 19 June 1918 at Quincy , Massachusetts , by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company under contract from Bethlehem Steel Co . ; launched on 14 September 1918 ; sponsored by Mrs . Francis Pickering Thomas ; and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 31 January 1919 with Lieutenant Commander Harold A . Waddington in command . " Walker " got underway on 20 February to rendezvous with transport " George Washington " as it returned from France with President Woodrow Wilson . Upon completion of this duty , the new destroyer returned to Boston , where she was soon assigned to Division 18 , Destroyer Force . She proceeded to Newport , Rhode Island , and loaded her full allotment of torpedo es at the Naval Torpedo Station . She sailed for the West Indies on 6 March and , soon after her arrival in the Caribbean fell into the Fleet ' s regular schedule of exercises and maneuvers . " Walker " conducted tactical exercises off San Juan , Puerto Rico , and gunnery exercises out of Guantanamo Bay , Cuba , into the late winter and early spring of 1919 before she headed north . After steaming into New York harbor on 14 April , the destroyer was sent to her base at Newport , R . I . Early the next month , she supported the Navy ' s NC - boat transatlantic flights . Initially stationed at Trepassy Bay from 6 May to 8 May , she later operated at sea from the 10th to the 17th , serving as one of the chain of picket ship s to provide the NC flying boat s with position reports and bearings . When this mission was completed , she returned to Newport on the 20th . After calling at Annapolis in early June for a two - day visit during Naval Academy graduation exercises , " Walker " headed south and transited the Panama Canal on 24 July . She called briefly at Acapulco , Mexico , for two days before steaming for southern California , arriving at Coronado on 8 August . Based at San Diego , " Walker " conducted local operations off the west coast into late 1919 , when she was assigned to the Reserve Destroyer Flotilla . She embarked naval reservists for an indoctrination cruise on 27 October 1920 and remained in " rotating reserve " duty , conducting periodic target practices , full - power runs , and undergoing overhauls at the Mare Island Navy Yard . Decommissioned on 7 June 1922 , as part of an austerity program , " Walker " was placed in reserve at San Diego , where she remained into the 1930s . After 16 years on " Red Lead Row , " the ship was struck from the Navy list on 28 March 1938 and slated for disposal by sale . Logistics requirements of west coast naval districts , however , resulted in the former destroyer being placed back on the list and earmarked for conversion to a water barge . Redesignated YW - 57 on 1 April 1939 , the ship was undergoing conversion at the Mare Island Navy Yard when the Navy again decided to change the vessel ' s role . With the outbreak of war in Europe and the possibility of American involvement in the conflict , the ship was slated for use as a damage control hulk . Fate . Designated DCH - 1 on 11 July 1940 , the vessel was based at the Destroyer Base , San Diego , and used for training exercises in formulating and evolving new damage control techniques . In the following year , as the Pacific Fleet ' s base had been moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor , plans were made to tow DCH - 1 ( which had been stripped of propulsion machinery during the initial conversion work to YW - 57 ) to the Hawaiian Islands . On 28 December 1941 , damage control hulk DCH 1 ( IX - 44 ) , formerly destroyer Walker ( DD - 163 ) , while being towed from San Diego , California , to Pearl Harbor , by oiler , was cast adrift and scuttled by gunfire from " Neches " at . Fiction . USS " Walker " DD - 163 is the main ship used in the alternate history series Destroyermen written by Taylor Anderson . The series begins with the " Walker " in the U . S . Asiatic Fleet at the outbreak of World War II . She is pursued by superior Japanese naval forces following the Battle of the Java Sea and seeks refuge in a squall . USS Walker and her sister , USS " Mahan " , are transported to an alternate Earth , one where a different evolutionary path occurred . Taylor Anderson also uses other decommissioned ships in these books , such as USS Mahan ( DD - 102 ) , USS S - 19 ( SS - 124 ) , and the Japanese battlecruiser Amagi .